


i brought my pencil

by betp



Series: Tutor!Verse [10]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bullying, Homophobic Language, M/M, Secret Relationship, nerd/jock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2018-07-24 03:25:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7491558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betp/pseuds/betp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your typical, classic nerd/jock au, but with a shittier attitude.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. derek's history

**Author's Note:**

> Three or four years ago I wrote [a fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/586687) where Stiles tutors Derek in history. I rewrote it. Why? Because it was physically possible to do so.

Derek slouches miserably beside his history teacher's desk.

She doesn't notice. Ms. Nguyen is sitting comfortably and checking her email while the rest of the class files unhurriedly out the door. Derek's test is facedown on the desk before her. Clearly this was her attempt to preserve his privacy, even though the red marks you can see through the paper, and the fact that it's facedown at all, are pretty damning. As Boyd shuffles through the door amidst talkative classmates, he gives Derek a knowing look and a silently raised fist. Derek just stares back—he thinks it's supposed to be a gesture of solidarity or support or something—or Boyd's making fun of him. Frankly, that one's most likely.

Derek's ex, Kate, smirks at Derek, smug and flirtatious. Derek flips her off. "Mr. _Hale_ ," Ms. Nguyen snaps, and Derek does his best to look penitent. She sighs and irritably begins to compose a reply.

Soon, the parade of Derek's shame is gone, leaving only Derek, Ms. Nguyen, and some kid. Derek thinks he's seen him before: the pep band, or second string lacrosse, or yearbook committee maybe. Someone that's around him pretty often, but someone he's never spoken to. He doesn't even know his name. Just his face is familiar. Something about his eyes. Derek thinks he might be the same kid that sits behind him in AP US History. In fact, if he recalls correctly, the kid spends most of the period studiously highlighting entire paragraphs in the textbook.

Derek puzzles over this kid as they both hover by Ms. Nguyen's desk, shifting their weight and avoiding eye contact. The guy's got a grubby band-aid on his finger. He's wearing, like, three shirts, the last of which is a t-shirt with the symbol for pi on it. His ears stick out, and the fact that he's got a buzz cut doesn't make that easy to ignore. He's got thick, clunky glasses, doing a poor job of covering up an ugly bruise around his eye. He's got both his hands shoved deep into his pockets, shoulders rigid. Derek doesn't think he's even in Derek's _grade_.

The guy finally works up the courage to look at Derek—and looks away immediately. Derek stares back, unwavering. He's probably imagining this intensity. "Well!" says Nguyen, and both the kid and Derek jump, startled. She smiles sweetly. "So."

"So," replies the guy, eyebrows aggressively up.

"Mr. Hale," says Ms. Nguyen gamely; "This is Mr. Stilinski. I'm setting you two up."

Both Derek and Stilinski's jaws drop comically. Derek recovers quickly: " _What_." Stilinski does not recover at all. He goes lily white, and then beet red.

"You can do it wherever you want, however often you want," Nguyen goes on, seemingly oblivious. "All I care about is _results_. Don't worry," she directs at Derek. "Mr. Stilinski's got a lot of good techniques and habits he can teach you. He can get you back up."

Derek squints at Stilinski, whose redness has reached a new high. " _I'm_ sorry," says Stilinski, voice cracking. "We're talking about _tutoring_. Right? Tutoring?"

Derek snorts. For the second time, Stilinski looks at him. Just a quick glance. "Yes," Ms. Nguyen says slowly, frowning. "You'll be tutoring him until midterms. You know that."

" _I_ know that," Stilinski agrees. "Just—just making sure—just making sure we _all…_ know that." He gestures circularly, emphasizing the three of them. "Um, all of us… on the same page. Here." He shifts his weight uncomfortably from foot to foot. Derek is really enjoying watching him. It's like a freak show.

Derek tells Nguyen, "I don't want a _tutor_." Especially not some baby dweeb prodigy. "I'm fine."

"You're failing, is what you are," she says. "You've missed so many reading guides and flash card checks that your only chance of passing is if you get above 90s on every assignment from now on, and get above a 95 on the midterm."

"So I'll study."

"Damn right you will," smiles Nguyen. "And Mr. Stilinski here will make sure of that." Derek looks sidelong at Stilinski, eyes narrowed. Stilinski is shifting his weight from one foot to the other, fretting and chewing on his lip. "Look, Derek," she adds, softer. "Ms. Waters told me about your Calc grades. If you don't pass this class, you'll be ineligible for all your extracurriculars. You get that, right?"

Derek gets that. He supposes that might suck. Kicked off the baseball team because he doesn't care about school, or anything. Defeated, he watches Ms. Nguyen pass his probably mortifying test to Stilinski.

::

"That was the _worst_ ," Stilinski decides miserably, once they've left the classroom. The hall's relatively deserted; it's fourth block already and most of the school's in class. There are giant, east-facing windows all down one side of the hall, opposite the classrooms, and since it's the afternoon, the hall isn't quite _dim_ , but it's not painfully bright like it is on the other side of the school. In the shady light, the smeary fingerprints all over Stilinski's glasses stand out vividly. "Um, sorry," Stilinski's prattling. "I wasn't—I don't think she knows how colloquialisms work. I was like… wow. D'you understand _life_?"

There's a pause. Derek can't even believe he's still stressing out about that, making stupid movie references, when Derek's the one whose entire academic career is basically on the chopping block. He's not sure how one person can be so self-centered and intense.

"Sorry," Stilinski says again. "That was weird. It was a thing. It's fine. Don't worry about it. Listen, we—"

"The Room," Derek interrupts. Stilinski looks up at him, looking like a deer caught in some headlights. "The movie?" says Derek. "You quoted it."

"You've—" Stilinski begins, and then immediately seems to think better of it. He looks down at his phone, swallows, shakes his head mutely. Then he proffers the phone. Derek takes it; it's in the middle of creating a new contact. "Put your number in," Stilinski says. "And don't put any weird emojis in your name."

 _What_? "Same to you," Derek grumbles, shoving his own phone in Stilinski's general direction. Idiot.

::

Derek sighs heavily and looks at his phone.

"Flash cards," Stilinski offers with a weak attempt at enthusiasm. Derek gives him a flat look. "Learning," Stilinski adds. He's using a slightly hushed tone, because they're in the library, at a small table tucked into a corner behind the reference section. He displays a flash card labeled _Railroad Strike, Great!!_ like he's Vanna White. Derek has fleeting fantasies of shoving the guy out of his chair. When it becomes immediately clear Derek's not even gonna pretend to care, he sighs and tosses the card and its cohorts onto the table. "Okay, I get it," Stilinski levels with him. "It sucks. You don't like it."

"I don't like it," Derek agrees. "You think history's _hard_ for me? You think I just need help _understanding_ the _concepts_ of _remembering shit_?"

"No," says Stilinski, irritated. "I think you need to get your _ass_ in gear, and Ms. Nguyen thinks you'll go, _oh, if I do well in this class, she won't make me hang out with Stiles anymore_."

 _Huh_? "What are _stiles_?" Stilinski gives him the sort of look you might get on your face if you were being hypnotized into watching Nick Jr. Oh. "Really? _Stiles_? That doesn't even make _sense_. That's not even the same _vowel_ sound."

"Ooh, _vowel sound_ , he says; look who's really good in school _now_ ," snaps ' _Stiles_ ,' braces bared. " _I_ didn't make it up, okay? And it makes more sense than my actual name."

"Which is…?"

"None of your business." Stiles watches him look at his phone again. One of the lacrosse starters is in the group chat looking for weed. Derek wishes he was high right now. "Baseball," Stilinski says.

"What?" snaps Derek, whipping his head up to squint at him.

"Do it for baseball," shrugs Stilinski. "I know you're on the team. I heard you guys were going to state this year." He's tapping his pencil repeatedly on the open textbook now, knee bouncing. It's weird; Derek doesn't wanna say it _energizes_ him, but it does make him feel like he should be moving, too, eyes electric bright.

He shrugs one shoulder. "Not if _I'm_ disqualified." He's probably being sort of cocky, but he knows his strengths, and he's their best pitcher.

Stiles doesn't seem irked or even surprised by Derek's assessment. He just nods, says, "I guess that's why Nguyen gives a shit if you pass or not; she didn't even notice when Scott dropped her class." Derek has no earthly clue who Scott is, but Stiles doesn't give him a chance to ask: he goes on, "I was never any good at baseball. Any non-contact—or, you know, any sport without much cardio, it, they just, I can't focus. Like football?"

"Football has plenty of cardio," Derek cuts in. So does baseball, incidentally.

"Sure, but, like, _practically_ , there's too much pausing. Too much stopping the clock, and, like, lying around on top of each other and shi—uh, stuff." Like Derek gives a _shit_ if Stiles swears or not.

Like that's the issue with Stiles making fun of organized sports. It makes about as much sense, Derek thinks, judgmentally taking in Stiles' pale skin, slumped shoulders, awkward hands, as Derek making fun of, like, fiction authors or Fields medalists. "Have you ever actually _played_ football?" asks Derek. "Or _any_ sport? Have you ever _seen daylight_?" This is where Derek's attitude problem usually causes friction between him and, like, anyone but his sisters or Boyd. Which is why he usually just grunts noncommittally to his teammates—it's served him well. All the same, his scathing tone doesn't seem to bother Stiles.

If anything, it seems to bore him. " _Seen daylight_ , wow, original."

"If you're criticizing something you don't actually know anything _about_ …"

"It's just, it's easier to watch than play, o _kay_? I don't know why I—I was just m—you know what? Never mind. Just—" He snatches up the small stack of flash cards and slaps them down in front of Derek. "We have four and a half months of learning to get you to do in three weeks, Hale," he tells him. "What say we get on with it, so we can both move _on_ with our lives?"

"Which means _what_ , in your case?" asks Derek. He puts his chin in his hand and watches Stiles. That bruise has faded somewhat since the other day; it's looking mottled and sort of yellow. "Eating all your pencils and coloring in the entire textbook? Blogging about some Marvel Batman movie?"

"Okay, wow, where to begin." Stiles puts his fingertips to his temples, as if lost and offended. "First of all, Batman's DC. All right? Everyone knows this. Marvel's mainstream now, don't act like you don't know this." It's true. Derek does know this. That's not the point. It was a—a _syntax choice_ , to emphasize the fact that Derek doesn't _care_.

"Forgive me," says Derek, "for not being a pedantic _nerd_."

"Geek," asserts Stiles. "Not nerd. There's a diff— _hey_! There's a _difference_. And I think we've tipped the scales of lampooning my interests for this afternoon."

"Whatever," Derek sighs, depleted. "The things—the things you _care_ about, I can't—jesus…"

"Right, like I really take _your_ judgments seriously. You remember what you wrote on that test, Hale? I'll give you a hint: it's _super embarrassing_."

Derek laughs. He can't help it. He's not even sure where it comes from. "Um, that's a really bad hint," he says after a minute. Stiles looks contrite, inexplicably, like he thinks he went too far. Like, even though Derek's not mad, he regrets it. Derek's not sure if there's a strictly casual way of saying, like, _change nothing, you are uniquely breaking up the monotony of my life_ , so he errs on the side of silence.

Stiles sighs, and then grabs a flash card. "All right, Homestead Act," he says, and Derek rubs his temples.

::

It goes on like that.

Every lunch break, Derek meets Stiles in the library. ("You're two minutes and seventeen seconds late," Stiles informs him gleefully; it's like he's _trying_ to get a _kick me_ sign taped to his back. Blessed be whatever odd happenstance resulted in them having the same lunch both days.) At least two evenings a week, Derek shows up on Stiles' porch with his ears still wet from the locker room shower. ("Take your shoes off," Stiles commands lackadaisically. "I do the cleaning, and I don't wanna have to scrub up _sport dirt_ ," whatever _that_ means.) And every Saturday, they meet up at Starbucks. ("I hate this place," Stiles complains every goddamn week; "They always burn the shit out of their beans.")

And Derek's learning. He doesn't wanna say he's starting to enjoy history—although the meticulous hindsight, the way things all fit together to produce the present, that's cathartic, in a weird way. No, Derek thinks it's mostly because it's easy to remember shit when you've got Stiles beating it into you. He's… _tenacious_ , to say the least.

"Dude, you _know_ all the events," Stiles is telling him expressively one day, an hour and a half after Derek's supposed to have gone home. "You just need to apply them to the right _dates_."

"Great, _that's_ helpful," Derek snaps. "Your insight—"

"End your sarcastic tyranny," Stiles interrupts, palm out. God, what a weirdo. "You're _really smart_ , Derek," he goes on, almost pleading. "You have a really good memory. You just don't _use_ it."

Derek feels utterly exhausted all of a sudden. He feels like you do when you overhear someone telling a story you told them, only they're getting so many details wrong it might as well be complete fiction. Derek's had seventeen years of experience with himself. Three years shy of two decades hearing what people say about him. And contrary to the point, he's not an idiot. If one person says grass is purple, they're wrong; if everyone on earth says it, then grass becomes purple. What you think you know only matters if you're not the only one to know it. "Look," sighs Derek. "If I have to stop playing baseball, then I have to stop playing baseball. I'm not sure why you're so invested in this."

Stiles looks at him, mouth open, looking almost windswept. Surprised. Like he went on a cross-country trip and happened to run into Derek there. He looks at Derek like that, blinks once, twice, and Derek—gets distracted. That's what Stiles does to him. Derek never gets distracted, because everything is equally boring and stressful. But Stiles—he always throws him _off_. Maybe it's the fact that he irritates Derek inimitably. Maybe it's that he's nothing like any of Derek's friends. Maybe it's how he's different than Derek expected, or how there's something irksome about the arch of his brow over the rim of his glasses. Maybe it's just his mouth, the plush pink of it, how he chews on his pencils and his hoodie strings and purses his lips when he's thinking. Derek shouldn't be thinking about that.

Derek's never thought about that. He likes _girls_. He _dates_ girls. He _likes dating girls_. He likes their voices and their unique perspectives; he likes the shape of them. He dates a _lot_ of girls, and has a lot of sex. Sex is easy. You forget things while you're having sex. Things seem intense and abstract when you're in the dark with someone else. It's different from seeing them at school or whatever. For example, the Jen he spent Lydia Martin's party in the backseat of a car with was _worlds_ different than the Jen he had Geometry with. Derek can't imagine there being a difference there with Stiles.

Derek's watching him and thinking about it. It's terrifying. He thinks—

"A mnemonic device," Stiles announces, making Derek jump a little in his seat. What? Oh. "Or, or—no, you know what _I_ think?"

Derek swallows. "I bet you're gonna tell me."

" _I_ think you're a _tactile learner_. You know? I'm gonna—" Stiles ducks under the table and starts rooting through his backpack for his stupid little netbook. "—see if I can't—find a test—"

"A tactile learner?" Derek repeats doubtfully.

Stiles pops back up tableside and plunks the netbook down on top of several candy wrappers. "Yep!" he quips. "Like me! Twinsville, population: us!"

Twins. Stiles thinks they're twins. Derek scrubs his face with both hands. "If _you're_ a tactile learner," he says, "then how do _you_ remember shit?"

"That won't carry," says Stiles, pointing sort of diagonally at Derek, eyes on the computer screen. "I have a specific mind. This comes naturally to me." He glances at Derek, then, eyebrow cocked almost roguishly, and Derek's thinking about it again. "I know everybody wants you to think people who excel in school are just, like, super disciplined and shit, but—truth is we're just _good at school_."

Flatly, from Derek: "Uh huh."

" _And_ we have discipline." Stiles gives him a weird look, amused and knowing. "You have _no idea_ how good I am at controlling myself."

Derek's really thinking about it.

::

Stiles is sixteen. Derek was right: he's a grade below Derek. But he's taking three junior-level classes and he makes the dean's list every semester. His best friend is some short kid named Scott, and school is the only thing Stiles does better than Scott. Stiles collects comic books and there's an obsolete ban on super glue still in effect in his household. His dad is a cop, his teeth are crooked, and he's afraid of bees. He _loves_ to recommend movies and be recommended books, so after watching a heist movie on Stiles' recommendation, Derek tests him by suggesting a book series his little sister liked about five years ago. Stiles fails the test breathtakingly: not _only_ does he read the book even after realizing what kind of book it is, he also reads _the entire series_ and then spends the whole of their next study date berating him for it. Derek's never hung out with anyone that yelled at him or called him a "disingenuous, plebeian dirtbag," so why the irritation is followed by a swell of fondness is beyond him.

The bell at the end of second block rings and Derek realizes with a rush of relief that it's lunchtime, and he'll be spending it in the library with Stiles. It's the first time in a long time Derek's looked forward to something. When he gets there, Stiles is all in a huff because their usual table is occupied. "It'sh _our table_ ," he keeps hissing at Derek, "I don't think _reshpecting my tenure_ ish too much to ashk!" doing that thing where the more irritated he gets, the more pronounced his _braces lisp_ gets. Derek pretends to drop his pen so that he doesn't laugh right in Stiles' face. As he's waiting for Derek to finish wiping Stiles' glasses off on his t-shirt, an almost daily occurrence, Stiles points at him and says, "Taft," and Derek obediently replies, "Trustbuster."  Stiles laughs hysterically. So much for positive reinforcement. This is Derek's life now. This is where he is.

"Why haven't you been at lunch, dude?" Cody, shortstop for the Cyclones, asks Derek after school that day in the hall. "Chelsea Winters said she saw you in the library with some kid."

Some kid. Derek supposes that must be what Stiles is. He's stopped _seeming_ like "some kid," but what one person thinks of you doesn't equal what you _are_. He glances over Cody's shoulder. Stiles is several lockers away, explaining something to some girl, and it looks as if he's using a bottle of hand sanitizer to illustrate his point. He looks even dweebier than usual from this removed distance, eyes obscured by glasses glare and shirt collar sticking up on one side. "Yeah," Derek says. "He's helping me study for AP US."

"I didn't know you were in AP." Cody shuts his locker, looks at Derek. He follows Derek's gaze. Stiles fumbles the sanitizer and it ricochets off the girl's arm. She looks irritated. "Is that him?"

"Yeah," says Derek.

Cody laughs so suddenly it makes him cough a little. "Jesus," he says, grinning broadly. "Oh, my god. That—I _know_ that kid."

"Mm?"

"Yeah, dude, that's the guy that ratted Jackson out for that shit last year." He means when a girl had a seizure and Jackson posted a video of it on Twitter. Jackson was benched for the playoffs. Among most of the student body, the consensus seemed to be that what Jackson did sort of sucked, but was it _really worth_ forfeiting all-state? There's a good likelihood Stiles got his ass kicked more than once for that. Derek eyes him with a new suspicious admiration. "And he asked Lydia out once." Cody adds this like it's _particularly_ egregious, like the real transgression is that Stiles doesn't know his _place_. Honestly, Derek thinks half the school's asked Lydia out. She's made an art of acting like she can't hear them. "Tell me you're just making him do your papers."

"Sorry. I gotta pass the midterm."

"Well, who do you have?"

"Nguyen."

"Well, shit. She's easy. Just, like, play the dead family card." Derek swallows a twist of rage. It disappears easily under his typical blanket of apathy.

"It's either this or I'm off the team," Derek monotones at him.

"Baseball or basketball?"

"Both." What a genius. If failing disqualifies him from one, why would he be eligible for the other? Derek glances back at Stiles, who has just noticed that the hand sanitizer broke open and got his shoe all wet.

"Figures," says Cody. He pushes off the lockers, and he and Derek make their way towards the front doors. As they pass, Derek and Stiles make eye contact—and then look away. That's pretty normal.

Outside their designated study times—which admittedly seem to stretch longer and longer as time goes on—Stiles and Derek do not associate. Stiles hunches his shoulders and slinks past Derek and his teammates at school, and Derek in turn pretends not to even know his name. It's weird, but it works. Stiles would get along with exactly none of Derek's friends, and Derek gets the feeling he is loathed by what little friends Stiles has. Stiles has made it clear he has no interest in pursuing a friendship outside of this arrangement, and Derek appreciates the easy-out. The only time they have anything to do with each other is when they're sequestered from their peers, holding highlighters and arguing ad nauseum.

And it's not like they have anything in common anyway, Derek realizes, getting into his car. What would they do if they hung out? How could they possibly navigate each other's friends? How could Derek possibly explain the minefield that is his home life? And, Derek decides, watching Stiles get into the ugliest blue Jeep he's ever seen in his life, how egotistical is Derek to think Stiles would _want_ to be friends with him? All he's done is demonstrate his total idiocy and rampant disregard for Stiles' interests and his own future. He'd have to be batshit to want that.

And Derek's dead inside. He gave up on everything a long time ago. So the point is moot.

Derek catches sight of him at a party one night, just a quick glimpse in a dark, crowded hallway. He's not even sure it was really him.

::

"Maybe you've earned a break."

Derek jerks his head up, looks at Stiles. He's standing, watching Derek, and holding a latex balloon, his latest "mnemonic device." Derek's not sure how the balloon and the lesson correlate. If anything, Derek'll remember the central powers because every time he reads that phrase, he'll remember Stiles holding a stupid balloon, hollering, "Germany! Bulgaria! Ottoman! _Austria-Hungary_!" and then tripping over his backpack and knocking a bunch of shit off the table. Derek supposes that'll suffice for a mnemonic device. God, what a moron. But Stiles is nothing if not inventive. "What?"

"A break," Stiles repeats irritably. "A _rest_ or _temporary cessation of work_."

Derek ignores the facetious dictionary routine, as he usually does. "What do you have in mind?"

Stiles doesn't seem to have been expecting that question. "I have literally nothing in mind," he tells Derek. "I cannot emphasize enough how little there is in my mind." He closes his eyes. "Shut up."

"I didn't say anything."

"You thought it."

For lack of anything better to do, and for the first time since they met, Stiles leads Derek into his bedroom. It's smaller than Derek's room, and more blue than red. Scuffed wood floors, cluttered bookcase, a faded poster about a flying saucer, pilled bedspread. While Derek is picking up and examining one of those "you showed up to the game" trophies from elementary school baseball, Stiles scuttles into his periphery and shoves a Kleenex box and what sounds like a bottle of lotion or something under the bed. Amused, Derek chooses not to acknowledge it. Instead, he displays the trophy for Stiles. "Thought you didn't play," he says.

Stiles straightens, wary. "I said it's easier to _watch_ than play." Derek raises his eyebrows, and gives the trophy one shake, his own brand of impatient curiosity. Those peachy spots on Stiles' cheeks go decidedly pinker, and he looks down at the floor, where there's a grubby, balled up tissue. Gross. Stiles kicks that away also. Then he looks back at Derek. "Um, my mom was the volunteer coach," he explains, distractedly plucking several articles of clothing from the floor. "After she died, it stopped being fun. My _therapist_ —" he says this with a little eyeroll "—told Dad it wasn't healthy for me to not have any interests, though, so he set me up doing peewee lacrosse and the free kids program at the library." He indicates a defensive lacrosse stick, tossed in the corner by the closet. "Lacrosse is where I met Scott, whose dad seemed to think the cure for asthma was physical discipline, and _that_ —" He points at a heap of books, too messy to be called a stack, but too concentrated to be called a volcano. " _That_ would be how I replaced the therapist."

Derek looks at Stiles, tall and rumpled, hoodie falling unceremoniously off one shoulder. One of his shoes is untied, and he's smirking, like he exacted _revenge_ on whatever therapist made him _do_ things.

"It was cheaper, too," Stiles finishes, pleased with himself. He hurls the armful of clothes into a corner.

Derek's thinking about it again. Not necessarily for the same reasons as before. "Pretty sure my post-parental-death therapist had the same advice," Derek recalls, monotone. "But my uncle was too drunk to follow through, so I did it myself."

He and Stiles watch each other for a long minute, maybe more than a minute, watching and thinking. And Derek wonders, oddly enough for the first time, if Stiles ever thinks about it himself. "What about your sisters?" Stiles asks quietly. Derek pauses, mildly surprised; he thinks he mentioned having sisters, like, once. Stiles misreads the pause. "Um, I met Cora. Freshman year, I accidentally went into the girls' locker room and she told me she was going to rip my tongue out of my head and hang me with it."

That sounds like Cora. "Cora did the same thing I did," says Derek. "Laura's still at home. She's doing online classes. She… takes care of Peter." Stiles nods. "My uncle."

"I figured." Stiles tilts his head, eyes narrowed, like he's thinking about saying something. Derek waits. But he never does.

"I had another sister," Derek adds. "She didn't die with my parents." Stiles pales a little. "Sometimes," admits Derek, quieter, "I wonder of any of the rest of us will make it out of there." Stiles' brow furrows, mouth hanging open—not like he's gaping, but more like he's been softened by this information, just in general. Like it hit him in the gut. And Derek looks down at the baseball trophy, reeling and humiliated, because he's never told that to anyone. He has no idea why he said it to Stiles. "What does this say?"

There's a beat. Then, "That's my name," says Stiles, shuffling over to stand beside him. Together, they look at the little generic baseball trophy, robotically addressed to _Mysuisslgv Stilinski, 2004_.

"How do you—"

"Don't worry about it." He's very close. Derek can see his eyelashes. His glasses, now taped together on one side, are clean. Derek feels a peculiar lurch, somewhere in his chest. "They spelled it all wrong, anyway," Stiles tacks on.

"Can I ask you something?" Stiles looks at him, expectant. "Why are you the one helping me study? Like…" He puts the trophy down. "Why _you_ _specifically_? Did she choose you?"

There's another beat. Longer than a beat. "In a way," hedges Stiles. He waits, clearly hoping Derek will abruptly change his mind about wanting to know. When Derek just watches him expectantly, he steps away. "Um," his voice cracks, and he clears his throat. "She chose me… out of the applicant pool? Of which there was one person…"

A nasty sort of shock winds its way down Derek's throat. His voice sounds harsh when he asks, " _What_?"

"I sort of, um…"

"You _volunteered_?"

"Not _volunteered_ , per se," gushes Stiles, panicked. "More like… offered my services."

"That's the same _thing_ , Stiles."

Stiles' shoulders are hunched again. He's wringing his hands, almost pleading. "Is not! It's _not_ , it's not, it's just, she was— _you_ know, and you were—so I—"

"Why? Was the whole thing _your idea_?"

"It was—"

"What the _hell_ , Stiles—"

"It was _not_ my idea. Okay?" He's flushed again, angry and determined. "You seem… pissed," he confesses. "Has it really been that bad? You're basically caught up with the class," he goes on, "and now you've seen all the brat pack movies."

"Not by _choice_ ," Derek rebuts, mostly from instinct.

"Hey, man, if you didn't want to watch Sixteen Candles, you wouldn't have," says Stiles. He's right. Derek watched all those movies on his own time, just because Stiles told him he should. He missed Connor's party to watch one of them. The implications of that hit Derek all at once like a frigid wintertime dawn: he missed a party thrown by the captain of the basketball team because he decided he'd rather watch a thirty-year-old movie. He skipped Connor Chu's party on purpose, to watch something on Stiles Stilinski's recommendation. Derek feels caught. Pinned. Framed. It's all too much.

He's spent the last month, he goes on to realize, waking up as if from an eversleep, and the light's too bright. Everything hurts from disuse. Everything is rusty and unfamiliar. It's difficult to identify what exactly he's feeling at any given moment now that he's stopped going through the motions. The bottom line is that Stiles is right, and Derek suddenly hates him for it.

"You lied to me," he snaps viciously.

"When?" Stiles snaps back. Derek doesn't have an answer. "I'm sorry for _inflicting myself_ upon you," Stiles spits. "You were gonna get your ass thrown in study hall if I hadn't told Nguyen I'd do it. All right? You get that? It'd be on your permanent record." Derek clenches his fists, grits his teeth; the rage won't squash down this time. " _Forgive_ me," Stiles goes on coldly, "for now I see you'd rather be in _eternal lunch detention_."

"I already _am_ ," Derek all but yells at him.

"Right," says Stiles, looking disgusted. "You hated it _so_ much."

"Why do you _care_?" Derek crosses his arms. He wants it to be aggressive, but it's defensive. " _Why_? Why did you _offer_ , why do you care whether I get kicked out of baseball, or get rejected from college?" _Why did you do this to me?_ he doesn't ask. "You don't _know_ me."

"Maybe I'm a goddamn saint," says Stiles. Now _he's_ looking defensive.

"No. Why. Why, Stiles? I was fine before. I was, I was fine—"

"Oh, yeah, I could see that. You're barely passing most of your classes. You spend your weekends getting high and fucking randos. You were doing just _peachy_."

" _Fuck_ you," but Stiles doesn't even really react. Maybe he's been told by too many "jocks" to go fuck himself, and it's lost its impact.

"Why does it bother you so much?"

" _What_?"

"The fact that I offered to save your ass," explains Stiles, almost boredly. "Why does that _bother_ you?"

" _You_ bother me. _You_ do."

"Yeah, great, Mr. Backwards-baseball-hat, did-you-know-I'm-better-than-you, Apathy King, check-out-my-forearms—"

"You're just—" Derek's been steadily deflating throughout this seemingly endless diatribe. "You're just coming up with rude names now…"

"It's just one name. It's just one… really long name." This is stupid. This is _incredibly_ stupid. "You really wanna know why I offered to do this?" asks Stiles, frustrated and embarrassed. Derek gives a twitching shrug, an acerbic sort of _I'm all ears_ gesture. "Well, I don't know."

Derek boggles a little. "You don't _know_."

"I have _no_ idea." Stiles throws his hands up and then drops them. "I'd never talked to you before, and there was no reason I should ever _have_ to talk to you, and you know _me_ , man, I'm all about maintaining that status quo." Derek wonders if he _does_ know Stiles. "I guess I just… _wanted_ to." Derek realizes Stiles has been avoiding meeting Derek's eye when he suddenly looks up, uncharacteristically shy, vulnerable. They stare at each other for a long minute or so, letting that sink in.

Derek spots yet another used up tissue by the bed, and feels a slow swell of panic in between his gut and his lungs.

"I have to go home now," he tells Stiles somewhat thinly, and then he turns and he leaves.

::

That night, Derek can't sleep well. He dreams inasmuch as he drifts in and out of a lucid fantasy while he dozes fitfully. He's not surprised to find the dream is about Stiles, because he's worrying about it.

It's too complex. He tries to convince himself it's that Stiles likes him, Stiles has a _crush_ on him and he needs to extricate himself. He doesn't like Stiles. But then he knows there's no explanation for that feeling he got the first time Stiles texted him something that wasn't related to grades or history in any way. It's difficult to face.

But he does, and once he manages to do that, there's that deluge of confusing possibilities, the general out-of-depth fantasies. He thinks about Stiles absentmindedly chewing on the ends of his glasses, or his pencils, vividly imagines his hands, his long fingers and the careful challenge in his eyes. Stiles is tall, brown-eyed. He always looks either deeply bored or obsessively interested: there is no in between. Derek thinks of how comfortable he felt pressed side by side with Stiles on the couch the other night, and how Stiles seemed just as surprised by it as Derek was.

He thinks of Stiles passionately denouncing snow, just as an experience, and the disaffected timber in his voice when he talks. The jitter in his knees when he's sitting and the way he _looks_ at Derek, like he's fascinated by something enigmatic, and the way Derek somehow forgets to brace himself for the moment when Stiles realizes what seems like an enigma is actually just petulance. And Stiles doesn't react to Derek's bitchy personality like Derek was expecting: he treats it like any other conversation, mirroring the attitude, refusing to change the subject, because why would he? They go through a full circle of it and emerge talking about something else, which—the fact that Derek even bothers _talking_ with Stiles is indicative of some kind of massive breakthrough, probably.

But his eyes and his forearms and the way he stands and the fact that he always surprises Derek aside, Derek feels implicitly understood. Like for all his ineloquence and distance and disinterested refusal to succeed, Stiles sees through all the layers and gets to the nugget of truth at the center. It just comes naturally to Stiles: Derek makes sense to him, when Derek doesn't even make sense to himself.

He likes Stiles.

This kid he's been made to spend his free time looking at flash cards with, this guy, this eater of Cheetos, this idiot wrapped in layers upon layers of ugly hand-me-downs and Target clothing, Derek _likes_ him. He likes him like he hasn't liked anybody since—

Derek thinks about texting Stiles, he thinks about driving to his house and climbing in through his bedroom window, but what he'll say or do once he does those things is beyond him. The impulse is daunting, and he gives up on it. Rather, he lies fully clothed on his bed and thinks about Stiles until morning.

That day, exhausted and distracted, he gets to school and there's a line into the counselors' offices. Boyd is in it, and Derek shoves his way through the crowd to get to him. "What's happening," he asks.

Boyd looks at him like he's an idiot. "We're getting this week's schedules?"

"For what."

The look increases in potency. Boyd looks around, like he's expecting Cody to pop out of nowhere and tell him it's an unfunny prank. Finally, Boyd returns to Derek, squinting. He says, "Midterms?"

Derek swears.

::

Ms. Nguyen stands this time. She steps around the desk and tosses a thick packet of paper onto it with a smack. It's the midterm. It's Derek's midterm. On it, in giant red letters, Ms. Nguyen has written **98.9%**. Derek can't help looking at Stiles, who looks almost emotional at the sight of it. " _Dude_ ," Stiles breathes. It's the first thing Derek's heard him say in a week.

"Almost a ninety-nine percent," says Nguyen, thrilled. "Good _work_! I admit, I was a little worried, but when I got to the short answer, I knew you'd aced it." Stiles has snatched up the test and is scrambling through the pages of it—probably to get to the aforementioned short answer portion. "I never doubted you could do it," she tells Derek firmly. "You're back on track, and I will _happily_ sign off on your removal from academic probation. See what studying and a good night's sleep can do for you?"

"I didn't sleep at all the night before," Derek tells her without thinking. In his periphery, he sees Stiles look at him.

"Well, then you got lucky, Mr. Hale," Ms. Nguyen rejoins. "You and Mr. Stilinski should be _very_ proud of yourselves. Now that you've shown me what you can do, I expect you to maintain better grades in my class from now on."

Stiles, still reading Derek's test, abruptly registers that he and Derek are walking out the door, and spins to face Ms. Nguyen. "Wait, how'd _I_ do?"

She doesn't answer. She just ushers him all the more firmly out her door.

Like last time, the hall is empty and quiet, and Stiles is holding Derek's test. "Ninety-eight," he says, lifting the test. Derek nods mutely. "I mean, she couldn't have thrown you a bone and raised it literally _point one percent_? Seriously? Ninety-eight _point nine_? But I mean, whatever."

"It's fine," Derek says momentarily. "I… passed."

"Uh, yeah," says Stiles, like he's on the razor edge of a laugh. "I'd say you passed. By, like, a hair."

Derek looks at him. Maybe it's just that late afternoon natural light again, but Stiles looks different. Doesn't he? Derek thinks he looks different. He keeps staring at Stiles, trying to figure out what's different about him, like he's taking inventory. Hoodie printed to look like Spider-man, check. Old flannel under it, check. Ketchup stain on his jeans, check. Ugly, crooked, broken glasses, check. "You haven't talked to me," Derek tells him.

Stiles looks windswept again, just for a second, before an unfamiliar coldness shutters over it. He proffers the test. "Since when do I talk to you?"

Derek ignores the test. "Since about a month ago."

"Bad news, Hale," announces Stiles, mean and sort of singsong; "that wasn't _talking_ , it was _studying_." He's still holding the test out, and starts waggling it aggressively. Derek continues to ignore it.

"It was talking," Derek disagrees.

"No. Okay, would you just—?" Irritated, he gives the test a violent shake. Derek takes it from him. "Awesome. Please and thank you." He turns and heads down the hallway. Derek follows, easily, because Stiles is somewhat shorter and significantly slower than Derek. Stiles rolls his eyes. "Jesus. _Fine_ ," he tacks on, "it was talking, and then the talking reached a conclusion."

" _I_ wasn't concluded."

"You weren't _concluded_? Can a person _be_ concluded? Maybe you need an English tutor, after all…"

"I didn't _want_ you to stop talking to me," says Derek stubbornly.

"I didn't _stop talking to you_ ," explodes Stiles, stopping short and waving his hands around. "It was studying! It was an arrangement! And then it ended!"

"Why?"

"What? _Why_? Because you took the _test_ , you idiot!" He moves like he's going to walk away again.

"Don't talk _around_ this, Stiles," says Derek, fisting a hand in Stiles' jacket. Stiles instantly goes rigidly pliant, a reaction that utterly perplexes Derek. He has a bad feeling about it, but Stiles moves on too quickly for him to form a complete thought.

"Why do you care?" snaps Stiles. " _There's_ a question for you. Twenty points, cite your sources. Why the _fuck_ do you care?"

Derek releases him. Stares at him for a long minute. His glasses are covered in fingerprints. "I don't know," he lies.

Stiles adjusts his hoodie, his backpack strap, angry. "Yeah," he says callously. "Congrats on the test," he adds, and then he walks away.

::

Derek's eating his lunch the next Monday when Stiles approaches him. He looks annoyed. Derek glances up from his book, swallows a gulp of his Monster. "What."

"What?" Stiles repeats. "What do you _think_?"

Derek chews on a fry for a minute, watching Stiles seethe. "Nope," he says, "I'm getting nothing."

"I've spent every lunch in the library, _at this table_ ," stresses Stiles, "every day for a year and a half now."

Derek can think of at least one time when they went to that table over there instead, but that's probably beside the point. "So?"

"So, you spend a month in here against your will and now it's _yours_?" He clatters into the seat by Derek's. "Look, dude, I get the whole _manifest destiny_ thing you nerd-bullying jocks subscribe to, but you don—what. Why are you… what."

"What."

"You're smirking. What."

"I'm not smirking."

"Yes, you are. You're smirking. That's a smirk."

"It was funny, all right?" Derek moves his book over, makes more room for Stiles' lunch. "I know what manifest destiny is now, so sue me. N'you're not a nerd, anyway. You're a geek." He can hear the flat amusement in his voice when he says that, something like an inside joke, some note of affection in it.

Stiles makes a soft noise, like a squeak. He's staring at Derek, surprised. Then he visibly forces himself to look down at his lunch. Before Derek can ask him what the hell his problem is, he asks, "What, um… what're you reading?" What's he reading? Derek turns the book over, so Stiles can see the cover. "Oh. That's a gateway book," appraises Stiles. "You think you're just reading it for school but then you end up reading all her other shit. Next thing you know, you're Scott McCall." Scott McCall's read _basically_ everything. Derek should be aware of that: Stiles talks about him enough.

"Hm." Derek narrows his eyes suspiciously at the book.

"Yeah." Stiles settles back in his chair and plucks up a chicken tender. "Better lose the book. Flunk the class, maintain your sport cred. Start eating in the cafeteria like a normal person."

"It all circles back to you wanting your table back," drawls Derek. "Like we've never shared this table before?"

"We shared this table," Stiles tells him, one cheek stuffed full of way too much chicken for one bite, "because circumstances forced us to."

"Was it really so bad?" Derek props his chin in his hand, watching Stiles. "You've read the entire Clique series now. You found something edible at Starbucks. I know you still have my jacket."

"I can't find it," Stiles points out quickly, eyes dropping to his congealed macaroni and cheese.

He's blushing. Derek finds this heartening. He scoots his chair over, a couple inches closer to Stiles. "Stiles," he says. Stiles' eyes slide over towards Derek, but not quite at him. "You're pissed at me," Derek tries. "I get it. I'm trying to—"

"No, you _don't_ get it," says Stiles, swallowing. "We aren't friends. We were sort of getting there, and you killed it. So—"

"Fine, then forget friends. Let's date."

All the air seems to leave Stiles' lungs in one breath. He stares so intently that Derek starts to panic. It wouldn't be the first time he's misinterpreted someone's feelings towards him; and even if he was right, Stiles could still say no.

"Please?" Derek tries.

"You," says Stiles, "want to _date_ me."

Derek shrugs one shoulder.

Stiles makes an incredulous sort of grimace.

Derek shrugs again, more aggressively.

"Well, with _that_ convincing speech," Stiles begins acerbically; Derek drops his head back, exasperated. "No, seriously, dude. What the hell?"

"Is it really that impossible to—" Derek runs a frustrated hand through his hair. "I'm an asshole, not a robot. I can—I can _want people_."

"An—and you want _me_ ," Stiles clarifies.

"Sure." Derek's voice cracks. "Yes? Why wouldn't I…"

"Why _would_ you?"

"What?"

"Nothing. Look. Derek." Stiles has been holding aloft a half-eaten chicken strip this whole time, and he remembers it suddenly. He casts it irritably onto the tray; it upends a tiny paper cup of ketchup. "You… and I… it won't, it can't…"

Derek should have expected this, honestly. "Why?"

"I just don't _get_ it," urges Stiles. "One—one second you're, you're walking out on me because you find out I'm—find out I, that I—jesus—stop _looking_ at me like that, I can't— _think_."

"If you're not interested," says Derek, moving to scoot his chair back out of Stiles' personal space, but Stiles flings a hand out and fists it in Derek's jacket.

"What about _any_ of this," hisses Stiles, eyes darting to one side and back, like they're being observed, "makes you think I'm not _interested_? If I wasn't _fucking interested_ , I would have let your ass rot in academic probation!"

"What makes me think you're not interested? Really? Maybe the fact that you just started to _tell_ me you weren't interested—?"

"I started to _tell_ you it won't _work_ ," snaps Stiles. They've dropped to hoarse whispers now, because a couple rows away, somebody is bitching to their friend about having the last possible lunch period. "Which it won't! Because you, you're _you_ , and your friends are—" Stiles widens his eyes, makes an incomprehensible gesture with his free hand, like this alone should describe Derek's friends. What pisses Derek off the most is that it's the most accurate descriptor for his friends he's ever heard—or, seen. "And _I'm_ , you know—" Stiles somehow makes the mirrored version of that gesture.

"Is English your second language or something?" asks Derek at a normal volume. "This isn't about my friends. Do you or don't you."

"Shut _up_!" wheezes Stiles. "Obviously I do, but it's not that simple! It's—Derek," he warns.

"What."

"I told you to stop looking at me like that."

"How—" Derek laughs a little dubiously. "How am I looking at you?"

"Like—" Stiles groans helplessly. "Like—I have to kiss you now."

"Is that—is that how I'm _looking_ at you, or a _tangent_ —"

"Both," says Stiles, "Yes. Shut _up_."

They've been leaning towards each other steadily for the last couple minutes anyway, so they meet halfway and the kiss itself is probably pretty average? As far as first kisses go? Still, Derek feels heady, like the floor's dropped out from under him, like he thought he was going to plummet to his death, but miraculously, he didn't. Stiles' hands steal up to clutch at Derek's jaw, fingers warm, and Derek touches his knee, grips there. When they break apart for a second to breathe, their mouths drag together. It takes Derek a moment before he opens his eyes.

"Oh," says Stiles. Hoarse.

"Yeah," Derek replies.

Stiles nods, and then ducks in for another kiss, another weak sigh. Derek's not sure what he was expecting; he just knows it wasn't this. He doesn't want to stop—but they're in the library. Reluctantly, he ducks his head before Stiles can kiss him again. "Um," Stiles says, and then seems to change his mind. He pulls his hands back, settles in his chair, and looks at Derek, thoughtful. "Were… you being se—"

"You wanna go out with me?" Derek interrupts, determined.

"Uh… yeah."

Derek squints, annoyed. "Well, with _that_ convincing speech."

"Dude, shut up," Stiles rasps. "I never, you, I—I never," he tries, "let myself _hope_ …" He trails off.

Derek watches him for a long minute. He realizes he's holding Stiles' hand, sort of. He's hanging weakly onto the ends of Stiles' fingers, as if ready at any moment to pull him back if he were to get up to leave. He realizes with unfamiliar, swelling glee that he could _have_ this. He could _have Stiles_. He could ignore that barrier he put up and just stay with Stiles indefinitely. He could have those study dates for— _ever_. Then he says, "You need to clean your glasses."

Stiles blinks, muffled shock. Then he laughs.

::

"—pointless social roles, based on _what_?" Stiles is ranting. He bops Derek's biceps with his open palm, for emphasis, and probably also to make sure Derek is listening. Derek is always listening. It's hard not to. "Based on _alpha male bullshit_. Okay? Like, who _gives_ a shit who's good at—"

"Stiles," groans Derek. "If you really still think this is about your crap nerd-jock dichotomy, then you're just being a lazy thinker. All right?"

"A _lazy thinker_?" Stiles lifts his hands, like he's waiting for the words he needs to drop from the sky. "Of all the boring, hypocritical—"

"I'm _not_ saying there's no element of ego or whatever." Derek reaches over to Stiles' homework sheet, scribbles out his drawing of a palm tree in a coconut bra just to be shitty. "Or, you know, physical—"

"Then _explain_ _why_ —"

"Shut up. Danny's really good at school, too. Danny Mahealani?"

Stiles rolls his eyes impatiently: "I _know_ who Danny is. _Everybody_ likes Danny."

"Exactly. _Everybody_ _likes_ Danny."

"So," says Stiles, prickling, "you're saying nobody likes me and Scotty because we're unlikable."

"No." Because Derek thinks more people would like Scott if he weren't friends with Stiles, and if he got a haircut. "I'm saying Jackson, Danny, Chris, and Cody don't like you, and everybody likes them. That'll… inform everyone else."

"So it's a rationalized mob mentality."

"Sure. Whatever." Derek snatches Stiles' glasses off his face, starts wiping at them with his t-shirt. Stiles watches with that empty, dreamy look in his eyes that he gets when everything suddenly goes blurry and double. Derek's not sure what it says about him that that he finds that look so sexy. He stuffs the glasses back onto Stiles' face. "And you're obnoxious and you dress like a thirteen-year-old."

" _That_ I can accept," says Stiles, grinning crookedly. He forgot to put his bands on again today; at this rate, he's never gonna get those braces off. "Hey," he says.

"What."

"I like you." Derek knew that already. Why does that make him feel all hot in the chest? It's not news. "We should _totally_ be having sex right now."

Derek feels his focus tunnel in on Stiles, a drilling, obsessive sort of sensation. Suddenly all he can think about is Stiles, the shape of him and that look in his eyes. "Your dad is downstairs," he points out. "And we're studying."

"All right, first of all, we are _not_ studying," says Stiles, laughing, "we're arguing about your shithead friends. Secondly—" he's pushing himself closer on the bed, until they're touching, heat seeping through Derek's jeans, "I super don't care about that, and I want to give you a handjob."

Derek glances charily at Stiles' closed bedroom door. "What if your dad comes?"

"Guess you'll just have to come first," says Stiles, almost pityingly. He reaches over, slowly, and puts his hand on Derek's knee. He's not supposed to be like this. Derek's argument that those social strata are invented and archaic aside, Stiles is _Stiles_ , and he's supposed to be an awkward virgin. And Derek's not supposed to let guys in three wolf moon shirts and watches too big for their wrists feel him up. He's not supposed to feel like swooning right now. Stiles is an excellent kisser, all things considered, and Derek wonders about that mouth of his. He's never been sucked off by a metalmouth.

"Just a handjob, though?" Derek asks hoarsely, and Stiles smirks and shoves his binder onto the floor.


	2. something about barking up the right tree

It's late, somewhere around ten or eleven, and Derek can somehow hear crickets over the sound of Stiles stomping ineptly through the foliage behind him. "Slow _down_ ," Stiles whines, not for the first time. He's out of breath. Derek does not slow down. "Where—ah— _ow_!" Stiles has slipped on some mud and bonked into a tree. Now Derek slows, circles around back to him. Stiles is clinging to the tree trunk, half sprawled in some muck, grimacing. The hood from his jacket's fallen off his head. "Where _is_ this thing?" Stiles asks when Derek stands in front of him.

"Not too much further," Derek answers, holding out a hand.

"Farther," Stiles corrects. "Further denotes progress. Farther denotes distance."

Like the first one doesn't still apply. This is partly why Danny hates him: he's a goddamn know-it-all. "You denote obnoxiousness." Derek grabs Stiles' wrist and hauls him to his feet. "We're almost there. Quit complaining."

"Hel _lo_ ," snaps Stiles, nevertheless allowing Derek tow him along through the trees by the forearm. "Have you _met_ me? I will _never_ stop complaining. It's what I _do_." He's right. He's wearing Derek's jacket over his own, because he kept kvetching about how humid and cold it was; and Derek's heard in depth how hungry he is. The only thing he hasn't complained about is the fact that they're together right now. "What if I break my ankle? Dude—um, bro—" He stops talking to breathe heavily.

"For somebody on the lacrosse team, your stamina is basically shit," Derek comments. Before Stiles can make a rebuttal, Derek finally spots his childhood treehouse. "Found it," he tells Stiles, and then adds a meaningless little "jesus." Stiles falls quiet looking at it: it's a little thing about seven or eight feet up. Not big, probably enough room for four children or three teenagers. It looks like a cheap birdhouse with a rectangular opening instead of a round one. There's a little, shitty ladder nailed to a branch in front of it. It's partially obscured by hanging limbs and spiny leaves. Derek sees a wet, vacant beehive nearby, which he elects not to point out for obvious reasons. The little house is pretty dilapidated, Derek will admit: it's only been outside in a foggy woodland in NorCal for a decade and a half. They approach it hand in hand—awkwardly so, because Derek didn't intend to hold his hand. It just ended up that way, and Stiles doesn't seem inclined to let go. Kind of like their relationship.

"Oh, god," says Stiles. "There's _moss_ all over it." Like that's indicative of, like, anything.

"That happens in the woods," Derek informs him condescendingly. Stiles makes a shitty face at him.

Derek releases Stiles' hand, climbs over a rotting log, and steps on the second rung of the ladder, testing it with his weight. It's only been maybe six months since he's been on the ladder, but it's still good to check. "Oh, jesus," Stiles hisses, like the treehouse is listening. "You're not climbing _up_ that thing, are you? You're gonna catch tetanus and die." Derek ignores him: the ladder holds firm, and he starts climbing easily. "You're gonna _die_ , Derek!"

"Shut up and get up here," says Derek, heaving himself onto a thick branch and into the house. There, he sits and watches Stiles flounder.

"Ohh, jesus," Stiles is saying again. He's stumbled his way through the various bracken and is examining the ladder like it's booby trapped. "This is bad," he decides to himself, gingerly placing one foot on the bottom rung. "If I die tonight, I bequeath my Wii to Scott—"

"If you die tonight, it won't be because you fell," drawls Derek, but Stiles is climbing the ladder.

"Who built this?" Stiles finally asks distractedly. He's clinging to the branch, eyeing the distance between himself and the little platform. "Umm, can I do that? Is it—?"

"Yes," says Derek flatly. Like Derek _flew_ up here? But he's mollified by the way Stiles frowns up at him and starts easing his weight towards Derek. He wouldn't do it if he didn't think he could. He trusts Derek, either to tell him the blunt truth or to catch him if he fell. "My mother," Derek finally replies. "She built it for Laura, but Laura didn't— _care_ ful, jesus. Laura didn't use it as much as I did." Derek slides back to make room for Stiles. Once he's in the house, Stiles doesn't seem to fret as much about his balance; he is peering around at the inside of the little house, the unevenly spaced slats of wood, the dings and scratches of animals and Derek's youth. There's an abandoned birds' nest up on a rafter.

"Heh," Stiles points at where Derek and his friends carved swear words into the wall a little under a decade ago. _Trevors a slut. VAGINA. Derek fucks dick's_. The part about Trevor isn't wrong. Stiles settles on his knees, sitting on his heels, Derek's jacket sleeves covering most of his hands. A board creaks when Derek leans on his palm, and Stiles winces a little. "This thing is gonna cave in," he decides gravely.

"Oh, well," Derek replies, earning himself a disapproving glower.

He expects Stiles to continue to bitch and moan about the quality of the treehouse, but Stiles doesn't. Instead he drops his head back and gazes with some indifferent reverence at the night sky through the boards in the roof. Then he looks down at the ratty grey blanket that partially covers the floor. Derek thinks it used to be a different color, but now it's grey. Stiles says, "You bring all your hookups here, don't you."

"What? No." Not _all_ of them. It's just secluded, is all.

"But you've brought _some_ of them." If there's anybody Derek can't hide subtext from, it's Stiles. Derek rolls his eyes. "Love it," says Stiles sardonically. He lifts the edge of the blanket with one finger. "Derek Hale's _hookup spot_."

"Does the fact that I have ' _hooked up'_ here make you want to leave? Because we could always just go use my bed, _oh wait_." Stiles gives him a frustrated look, which in turn frustrates Derek. "Hypocrite," he adds unfavorably.

" _Hypocrite_?" exclaims Stiles. "I'm not Mister Sexy-Popular here, okay? I'm not the one who—"

"Sexy popular…?"

"—probably every girl in the school at this point—"

"Stiles, would you just…"

"There's a difference in _caliber_ , here, all _right_?" Stiles looks back at the doorway, like he's contemplating climbing back down the rickety ladder. Evidently he deems it too risky, because he stays, fidgeting angrily.

Derek watches him move under the thin streams of moonlight that spill through the slats in the roof and wonders, for probably the billionth time and almost definitely not the last, what goes on in Stiles' head. When Stiles looks back, they're silent for a long time, just looking at each other, considering. Stiles' glasses have slid down his nose, and he pushes them up with a palm to one side. Then he lowers his hand slowly; Derek narrows his eyes, for some reason wanting to tackle him. _Wanting_ him.

"So," Stiles says, low, "you _have_ hooked up here before."

"Oh, my _god_." Derek drops his head back, exasperated. "Does it _matter_? Do you think I'm sitting here thinking about somebody _else_ right now?"

That quiets Stiles for a second, and Derek takes this pause as an opportunity to move forward, into his space. Stiles watches this, and his eyes drop to Derek's throat, his chest, and, inexplicably, up to his forehead. "It _is_ true that I command attention," he concedes, low and sort of mumbled.

"Mine, anyway," Derek says, and before Stiles can embarrass him by commenting on it, Derek kisses him.

Kissing Stiles has yet to lose its novelty, for Derek. Or maybe it's less the newness of it and more that he still can't get enough of it. It was strange at first, kissing somebody more or less his height, somebody who kissed with wild abandon and would tip Derek's head back and kiss him hard— _conquering_ , sort of. The differences are at least partly in Derek's head. Regardless, it took some getting used to, and Derek is willing to practice as much as it takes. It seems just as strange to Stiles, who, although he was aware before Derek happened to him that his interests included more than just the female shape, has dated exactly one person, and that person was a girl. In general, he lets Derek bite his neck, press him into the covers of his bed, crowd him against the lockers after school—always when they're alone, never when anyone could see. The passiveness is unfamiliar to Stiles to the point where he seems to squirm under the pressure of it. Still, he welcomes a hickey or five, as long as Derek at least pretends to care about whether or not he can cover it up with his clothes. Because Derek and Stiles are still secret. They're still hidden.

But they're not in the treehouse just to kiss. Stiles is fumbling with his cheap, canvas belt. "Uh," he gasps into a passionate failure of a kiss, "we gotta, we gotta do stuff now."

 _Do stuff_. Derek would give him a judgmental look if he could stop kissing him. "Whadoyou—want?" It comes out disjointed and slurred, and Stiles hums weakly in response. "This?" Derek goes for the gusto and practically tears his way into Stiles' ugly brown pants. It takes a minute, a few hot, clumsy strokes, for Derek to realize this is the first time he's ever held somebody else's dick. He looks, slow and a little shellshocked, into Stiles' eyes, mouth hanging open.

Stiles, to contrast, has a gleam in his eye. Derek didn't notice until now, but his glasses are taped together on the bridge like he's Harry fucking Potter. Derek doesn't have the capacity to interrogate: Stiles' fumbling fingers are going ineffectually at Derek's jeans. Stiles says, "C'mere."

"Wha?" Derek shuffles a little closer on his knees.

Not good enough. "Mm, closer, dude, _fuck_."

Derek gets as close as he can in these cramped quarters; Stiles has risen onto his knees since Derek started jerking him off, but he loses his balance now, topples to one side. Derek is required to catch him, if he doesn't want Stiles to soar out of the treehouse with his dick out and dash his brains out on a fungal log. Stiles only takes a second to stare, terrified, at Derek, before he finally succeeds in getting Derek's jeans undone.

"I've been thinking about this," he confesses hoarsely, "for a while. A _long_ while. Like, a _while_. I wan', I want—" He pushes Derek; Derek falls back onto his elbows, and Stiles climbs half in his lap. They're _together_ , Derek realizes, and it's like sparks behind his eyes.

 _This is weird, this is so weird_ , Derek's thinking, like a litany of wonderment rushing through the back of his mind. But it's watered down; it has no potency whatsoever; ignoring it is easy. At the forefront of his consciousness is this: Stiles sighs, or maybe it's a moan. The sound of it, breathy and close to Derek, is hotter than anything Derek's ever heard. He can _feel_ the vibration of it in Stiles' throat, right near his mouth. He's overcome with the intense and novel desire to bite there, try to get at that noise and mark Stiles up in the process.

It's fast. They press awkwardly and desperately together, dicks slick and sliding and Derek's fingers probably bruising Stiles' hip, and they come in just a few minutes. It's not finesse or skill they're going for, suddenly; mostly it's just dick. They're going for getting dick.

They slump and heavily breathe each other's air, clinging to one another's clothes.

Derek has spent the last several days imagining and imagining what Stiles will be like when they're together like this, and he thought he'd reached a conclusion. Stiles will be loud, clumsy, a little passionate. Stiles will expect Derek to do everything, and Derek will do it without a second thought.

Derek was wrong.

Stiles is quieter when he's having sex than when he's reading in class. He bites his lip and the sounds he makes are choked back, not in a way where Derek thinks he's doing it on purpose. Derek gets the feeling—still panting, Stiles drops his forehead to Derek's shoulder like a thud—that Stiles is like this all the time when he's doing this. Whether he does it to himself or it's someone else doing it to him, Derek thinks he absorbs it all and lets off something new that Derek needs in order to live. Like a plant, converting things into oxygen.

Stiles is still breathless, while Derek's heart rate is already lowering. "Really," Derek says. Stiles hums, eyes shut, a quiet sort of question. "You have practice every week. You should have better stamina than this."

"Oh, what, did I come too _quickly_ for you?" snaps Stiles. He's still leaning on Derek, face almost buried in his neck. "I don't, ugh…" He reaches down, adjusts his dick where it's hanging out of his pants. "Umm, seem to recall you lasting much longer than I did. Ugh."

On the contrary, Derek thinks: Derek came first. He doesn't bother correcting Stiles. The stamina thing doesn't really bother him. He shifts his weight, maneuvers them so he's leaning against the wall, Stiles still using him as a pillow. Stiles mutters something else that Derek can't hear, but assumes is disparaging, and then sighs contentedly.

"Not too bad, right?" he offers then; he squirms back, pressed against the wall beside Derek, with one leg tossed over Derek's. "I mean, for two dudes who've never, you know…"

Now that Stiles mentions it, Derek wonders if it was all that groundbreaking, when it comes down to it. It's not that weird, necessarily.

"Did you, um…" Stiles is looking at Derek, almost shy. His glasses are fogged halfway up the lens, and sort of bent inside the tape. "Like… like it?"

Derek realizes he hasn't spoken, aside from to jeer Stiles. Typical. He doesn't know, really, what to say. So he doesn't: instead, he tries kissing Stiles. No, he definitely still likes that. "It wasn't unrecognizeable," he tells Stiles.

"What?" Stiles squints. "I don't… whatever." Derek supposes as much sense as he makes to Stiles, Stiles can't understand _everything_ Derek says. He has a pretty good track record, all things considered. Derek's no perfectionist.

He kisses Stiles again, and this time there's no defined end, because Derek has nothing verbal to say, and nowhere in particular to be, except in Stiles' hand again.

"I'mnn," Stiles slurs against Derek's mouth. "I'm suck you off, soon."

"Soon?"

"Swear. I just, ummm. I gotta…" He reaches over, grabs at Derek's dick again. He exhales through his nose when he finds it. "Gotta work my way up to it…"

Derek glances speculatively down, considering Stiles, long fingers wrapped around his own dick. Up until about a month ago, he'd never even considered giving somebody a blowjob. He wonders if Stiles has awakened something new in him, or if it's just the feelings he has for Stiles that unlocked it. It could very well be both. Either way, Derek wants to suck him off. "Okay," he says.

"Maybe not today," Stiles puts in hastily, but Derek's not broken up about it.

"That's fine."

"It's fine?"

"Stiles," Derek says, exasperated. "Really. It's fine." He glances at Stiles' face, wondering.

"Are you sure?"

God, would he _relax_? "Pretty sure," says Derek. "Now shut up so I can concentrate."

" _Con_ centrate? What're you— _oh_."

Derek’s ducked down, pressed Stiles flat against the wall with a palm to his sternum. The other he wraps around Stiles’ dick, in order to give it a twisting stroke and then pull it into his mouth. Because he came a little while ago, there’s a salty taste to it, but Derek’s not shocked by that. He thinks most people have experimentally tasted this, doing it to themselves when they’re thirteen or whatever. If they haven’t, Derek’s not too pressed about it. Stiles’ hands are scrabbling at his shoulders. Derek pulls off, looks up at him, in case Stiles is panicking; but if he is, it’s not because he wants Derek to stop. He stares down at Derek, eyes fluttering a little. The flush that had chilled down in the last ten or fifteen minutes as returned full force, in blurry-edged patches from his cheeks down his neck to his chest. His eyes are dark and he’s biting his lip. He makes a small noise, pleading, confused, extremely turned on.

That’s heartening. Derek smirks, smug, and then adjust his own position: the wood grain is digging into his knees through his jeans and he’s not into it. He bunches up the ratty blanket under himself and sucks Stiles’ dick back into his mouth. The sounds Stiles is making are getting him going on their own, but the knowledge of what he’s doing to him is what gets Derek so hot. Something about the lasciviousness of it all, maybe, or just the fact that Derek’s got a cock in his mouth and he’d never imagined himself here in a thousand years, but here he is and it’s the hottest thing he’s ever experienced. He doesn’t even try to get it deeper in his throat—he’s gotten enough blowjobs in his life to know that he’s not particularly interested in gagging and ruining the atmosphere or whatever. Instead he focuses on making this good: for Stiles and, he realizes, humming and making Stiles twitch, himself. He lets the hand he’s using to hold Stiles still slide down. When Stiles’ fingers knit into his hair, he reaches down and grabs himself. “Bro, I’m gonna _come_ ,” Stiles practically squeaks, and Derek _sucks_. The heels of Stiles’ sneakers scrape gracelessly against the wooden slats of the floor, and dimly over the rapid pounding in his ears, Derek hears Stiles’ head drop back and hit the wall.

Derek sits up, slides closer, and deliberately jerks off onto Stiles’ pants. He wades through his own orgasm, compares this to dreams he’s had over the last couple weeks. Different than he thought it would be. Better. He thinks he’ll still enjoy the dreams, the fantasies, but he’ll always prefer Stiles to the image he has of him in his head. Momentarily, limbs still weak and buzzing, he leans out the doorway and spits onto the ground. He’s not quite sure he’s ready to swallow yet.

“You,” Stiles tells him eventually, hoarse and panting, “did that on _purpose_.”

He’s scraping ineffectually at the ejaculate on his pants with the heel of his palm. Derek smirks at him, completely unapologetic. “You needed to do laundry anyway,” he says.

“God, it’s so gross that you know that,” mutters Stiles, _gross_ here referring to the comical amount of time they spend sitting in his room doing nothing in particular, not to any actual moral judgment on the knowledge of Stiles’ mundane life that Derek keeps.

Derek sits up, leans his shoulder heavily against the wall beside Stiles. He considers trying to kiss him, but considering he’s just had come in his mouth, he’s not sure Stiles would consider that kosher. Just as he’s debating that in his head, Stiles leans in and kisses him first.

“You’re pretty good at that,” he comments then, soft, looking down at his lap. He’s pulled his dick self-consciously back into his pants and he’s idly scraping some dirt out from under his thumbnail. “I mean… if you’ve never done it before…”

“I just,” starts Derek, about to point out that he simply tried to recreate what he likes on the receiving end—but then, in light of Stiles’ earlier insecurity, he decides to omit that insight.

“I didn’t think you’d _want_ to,” Stiles points out. “I figured you’d want… to, like,” he gestures something, like he’s pushing a car, but it’s a really lightweight car that doesn’t require a lot of effort. “ _Ease into_ it.”

“ _Ease_ into what. Sex?”

“Dick stuff,” clarifies Stiles, wide-eyed and unashamed. “I figured you’d want, I dunno,” he’s fumbling with the drying stain on his pants again. “Maybe… pretend I was a girl or something. At least at first.”

“Right,” says Derek dully, “because you possess so much _feminine wiles_.” Stiles gives him a half-assed little sneer. “If I wasn’t into you,” Derek goes on, “the _way that you are_ , I wouldn’t be here right now.”

That gets a smile, but repressed so it’s more like a nervous smirk. Derek’s thinking about it again. His seventeen-year-old’s libido is kicking in. “Just wanted to jump into it, huh?”

“Figured I might as well go for it,” mutters Derek, eyeing Stiles’ mouth.

“You pulled it off, I think.”

“Uh, yeah,” says Derek, wiping his hand on his pants, “I noticed.”

“You think you’re _so funny_ ,” says Stiles, now getting up on his knees to crowd Derek into the corner. He climbs more or less into Derek’s lap, knees pushed up on either side of him. “I think I kinda like your hookup spot,” he adds, and then he kisses him.

::

They spend the next hour or two fooling around in a treehouse, until it gets cold enough that they can see their breath in the air, that they've got goosebumps, that Stiles keeps shuddering into Derek's chest, like Derek's even wearing a jacket anymore. Then they climb down and leave in silence, tromping back through the woods hand in hand.

"Someplace warmer next time," Stiles decides sagely, once they're back in his horrid Jeep. "Your car or something."

Derek looks incredulously at him. "My _car_?" Stiles is busy turning the heater way up, but he pauses to look defensive and confused. "Not a bed or something, you want my _car_."

"You have a sexy car," Stiles points out. It's partly matter-of-fact, mostly dubious: he can't believe he has to explain this. "Have you never done it in your car before?"

Derek has most definitely had sex in his car before. "You have a hickey," Derek tells him.

Stiles flushes six shades of red. Then he scowls and turns away. "Which would be _whose fault_ again?" he snaps, returning to his ministrations with the heater. Apparently, Derek was told during the studying gauntlet, there's a "sweet spot" with regards to Jeep temperature that takes some finagling to find. It's not always in the same spot on the dial.

"Mine." This isn't an admission of guilt; Derek's pretty shameless about it.

"I can't wait to spend the next three days wearing a scarf again," Stiles is muttering to himself, now going about backing out of the woods and onto the dirt road.

"You're always cold anyway." Stiles just glowers out the windshield. "What happened to your glasses?" asks Derek.

"Huh?"

"They're broken."

"I _dropped_ them, what _else_?" Stiles snaps. His braces glint in the darkness. "Clumsy Stiles, always goofin'—"

"You know," Derek interrupts, "you said that the first two times—" They're taped on the side, too, and one of the lenses is scratched. "—but I've never _seen_ you drop your glasses. Because you're always _wearing them_."

"Not in the shower." It's too quick, defensive. He’s easing off the dirt road and onto the deserted two-lane highway. "I mean, like you're around twenty-four-seven, supervising my _ocular habits_. Maybe they fell off my face. Maybe I threw them at an interrogative baseball player—"

"Stiles," says Derek.

Stiles sighs, and is quiet for a second. Not a long pause at all. The only reason Derek would take note of it is if he was paying rapt attention, or if he'd just spent several hours having nonpenetrative sex with the guy. "Dude, why are we talking about my glasses right now?" Stiles is almost whining. "We should be talking about something else. Something—something _specifically_ else."

"Really."

"Yeah."

"Like what."

He doesn't look at Derek, but he does smirk, shitty, out the windshield. "I heard somewhere that you fuck dicks," he says.

 


	3. fierce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get more complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Note the tags, please.** Spoilers in the end notes, if you wanna make sure.

Derek spots Stiles in the vacant corridors towards the front of the school. He’s crouching to look under a bench. As Derek watches, he gives this up, crosses the hallway, and stretches onto his toes to see the top of the bank of lockers. Then, seeing nothing, he stands in the middle of the hallway, looking around, at a loss.

That’s when he spots Derek. His mouth twists when he sees Derek, a fret: like a mix between disappointment and relief. Derek considers acknowledging him and then leaving him to his own devices, but like that was ever going to happen. “What,” says Derek when he approaches.

Stiles doesn’t really notice. He’s still looking helplessly around. “Umm, nothing,” he says. “Just, um… lost my keys.”

He does that a lot. Loses his things. Derek thinks this is probably the weirdest thing about him, because he meticulously keeps his stuff in the same places, and he’s oddly protective of his belongings; but all the same, things go missing, and he has no coping mechanisms in place to deal with losing things. A couple weeks ago he lost his glasses, as if he doesn’t keep them on all the time due to a need of them. You know, in order to see. He ended up finding them, a little bent on one side, somewhere in the library. He was so stressed out looking for them that Derek couldn't even enjoy how hot he was wandering around blind. Derek reaches out and adjusts Stiles’ jacket, where it’s rumpled and a little twisted on his frame. “Where’d you have them last,” he contributes.

Stiles sighs and doesn’t even dignify this with a response. Then he hangs his head, weakly kicks one foot to bump the toe of his shoe against Derek’s.

After a minute of silent indecision, Derek reaches cautiously out, puts his hand on Stiles’ wrist: if they were alone, if they weren’t at school, maybe he’d slide down and hold his hand. Maybe. Derek can't make any promises. “What happened?”

“Uhh,” Stiles deliberates. “I might need a ride home from school.” He swallows. “I don't wanna… and…”

“Stiles.”

“I’m so tired,” Stiles tells Derek weakly. “And, and—if somebody,” he swallows again, “ _has_ my keys, they could… get into my _car_.” Something occurs to him, and he goes white. “Or my _house_.”

“Who would go into your house?” asks Derek. He knows Stiles is going to blow off this question. He gives Stiles endless chances to tell him things, specifically things like this, and Stiles never does. Derek’s frankly getting sick of it. “I’ll give you a ride home from school,” he tells Stiles. Stiles doesn’t seem comforted by this promise; he’s still stuck on the idea of somebody breaking into his house. “In fact,” interjects Derek, “we’re skipping the rest of the day. C’mon.”

“I have chem today,” says Stiles, but he follows Derek down the hall anyway. “I need my keys.”

“Who would go into your house?” Derek asks him again.

Stiles sighs heavily. “People in general,” he says. “Somebody who wanted to steal my posters, or try on all my bras, or something…”

“Stiles,” says Derek warningly.

“Read my diary…”

“ _Give_ me a suspect.” Derek’s stopped walking. He tries to be mindful not to block Stiles into corners, because that seems to make him panicky; but it's an instinct he has trouble resisting, particularly when Stiles deliberately withholds information from him. Thankfully, whether or not Stiles opens up to him, he doesn't need to back him into corners. Stiles stays.

Stiles’ jaw is working, and he’s bouncing minutely, anxious. He looks around, up at the ceiling. “Chris Argent,” he says. Then he shuts his eyes: like an exhausted sort of wince of regret.

Chris Argent. His dad's ex-military. He and his sisters used to move around a lot, so he was held back a year in middle school: he’s a little older than everybody else. He also has a superiority complex, Derek thinks, and likes to scapegoat, just in general. He's an okay guy, and he dotes on his sisters (mostly), but Derek's not particularly surprised this is what he gets up to when Danny Mahealani's not looking. Nodding, Derek peers consideringly down the hall, at the stairs. Down them and immediately to the right, you’ll find the gym, where Chris and his particular band of basketball players keep their shit. People on the team don’t use regular lockers. It’s, like, a thing. Gym lockers are taller anyway.

Stiles suddenly fists his hand in Derek's jacket sleeve, recapturing his attention. “ _Don’t_ ,” he tells Derek viciously, “say anything to him.” His eyes are wide. Derek squints. “ _Please_. I’m _dealing_ with it.”

 _Doing a great job_ , Derek doesn’t say. “Fine,” he says. “Go meet me at my car.” Stiles doesn’t move. The pink patches on his cheeks are going decidedly pinker. He’s biting his lip. Derek takes Stiles' wrist and plucks the hand off his sleeve. “Go,” says Derek, and then he starts to head towards the stairs. He leaves Stiles standing uncomfortably in the hallway; if Stiles follows his directive, he doesn't notice.

The locker room’s largely empty, of course; it’s in the middle of second block, and anybody who’d come give Derek any pause is probably off campus somewhere, dicking around in the Taco Bell or whatever. The only ones in here are a few uncomfortable-looking freshmen, talking about freshman bullshit while one of them nurses a scraped knee. They pause when he comes in; then, as he ignores them, they start talking again. Derek doesn’t know Chris’s combo, but he does know which locker is his, and how to break into it. These lockers are old and cheap. All you need is a credit card, the ink chamber from a ballpoint pen, and strong forearms, and the thing makes a _kachunk_ noise and swings open in less than thirty seconds. Chris' jersey is in here, and it smells, but it doesn't smell any worse than any other jerseys in here. Derek's always had a keen sense of smell anyhow.

He shoves Chris's hoodie out of the way. A highlighter with a missing cap falls out and rolls away; something else falls, but it doesn't sound like keys, so Derek doesn't even bother looking. Chris's backpack isn't here—definitely either Taco Bell or KFC. There's a charger and plug in here, and the plug has a name written on it that isn't Chris Argent, but that's none of Derek's business. He knocks it onto the floor and kicks it over towards where Danny's locker is. He keeps shoving shit aside—a stick of deodorant, a bottle of cologne with a picture of some guy's abs on it, a grubby homework agenda, some books—until he locates a set of keys with a rubber Chewbacca keychain on them. When Derek picks these up, he knocks loose a small bag of weed. Derek snorts, but he honestly doesn't care what Chris does. He pushes it back behind the books. As he lazily shoves everything more or less where he found it, with his free hand he sprays the cologne inside the locker until the bottle is empty and the metal is tacky and wet, and then he slams the door shut. The freshmen are still there, and he hears them start coughing as he impassively leaves the way he came.  

When Derek makes it outside, Stiles is sitting on the curb next to Derek’s car. It’s started to rain a little, and his hood is up. He’s gnawing on the side of his thumb—Derek thinks he’s probably chewed the nail down to the quick, and has now resorted to the edges of the actual finger. He jumps up, frantic, when he sees Derek approaching. Derek tosses him his keys. Of course, Stiles fumbles them. But he does end up with them snatched in his hands, and the next thing Derek knows, he’s got an armful of Stiles: Stiles is hugging him around the neck, face tucked against Derek’s cheek. They’ve made out, they’ve fooled around, but Derek realizes he’s never hugged Stiles before. He’s warm. And somehow, it’s easier hugging somebody tall.

It only lasts a second: Derek’s just regained use of his arms and decided to hug him back when Stiles backs off. Not long enough. Derek feels oddly deprived. “Um,” rasps Stiles. His hood's fallen off, and there are rain drops beading on his glasses. “How did you… Where…”

“I summoned them from the sky,” Derek tells him flatly. “We’re still skipping. Get in.”

“No longer require your _services_ ,” mutters Stiles, but there’s no ounce of truth in it. He gets into the Camaro, keys clutched tight against his stomach. Derek drives like a maniac, he’s aware, so Stiles clinging to the edges of his seat while Derek peals out of the lot isn’t a surprise. They’ve been driving out to the main road for almost five minutes before Stiles asks, perplexed, “Why do you smell like Abercrombie?”

::

Stiles is still meek once they’ve arrived at the IHOP across town. He sits across from Derek in the booth, not squirming but still somehow coding as unhappy to Derek. He has a BLT with a side of fries on the table in front of him, but he’s only eaten half of it. He probably only ordered food because Derek offered to pay. Derek likes that about him.

“What happened?” Derek asks him.

Stiles innocently widens his eyes a little, but the fact that he’s staring with intent at his glass of soda doesn’t exactly have Derek brimming with confidence. Stiles glances up at him, and then sighs irritably. “A conflict?”

“A _conflict_.”

“A difference in, in _outlook_. It’s not…”

“It’s not _what_ , Stiles.”

Stiles seems to be ticking with something, like there’s anger he’s holding back. “It doesn’t—this won’t, you won’t need to do this again. I’ve got it _handled_.”

“Sure,” drawls Derek. “You’re not _bruised_ this week, at lea—”

“I was the one that reported Jackson Whittemore last year,” Stiles blurts out. He’s glaring at Derek, hostile. Derek feels put on the spot; he has no idea how exactly Stiles is hoping he’ll react to this information.

Derek tries, “I know?”

Stiles pauses, but it’s very quick and his face doesn’t change when he continues: “Well, last September I reported Nicolette Peters, too.”

“What did Nicolette _Peters_ do?”

“ _You_ know the poms were the ones who, like, painted on that girl’s house,” he tells Derek, leaning towards him and lowering his voice to a hoarse whisper. “Remember?” Derek does. Of course, there was no substantial proof, and nothing was confirmed definitively, but everybody knew it all the same. It was Mischief Night. It’s what the athletes _do_. Even freshmen like Nicolette. “Well, she put a picture of it on her Instagram. She did the planning.” Derek’s still considering this when Stiles barrels on, “I _know_ those people. I know Erica Reyes from Yearbook, and Harley’s been my friend since, like, the seventh _grade_. So me and Scott reported them.”

His mouth is set in a hard line, now, and he’s still looking intently at Derek. It’s confrontational, and Derek’s not entirely sure why. “So Chris Argent’s been beating you up?”

“False,” says Stiles angrily. “We have been _fighting_. Because he’s a smug, homophobic _douchebag_ who couldn’t make a freethrow if his life _depended_ on it.” It is true that Chris is kind of _bulldog-like_ in attitude. He’ll latch on to something or someone and it’ll take an act of _god_ to get him to back off. It is also true that he hasn’t been performing well this season. “And he’s a _coward_. He never comes at me unless I’m by myself and he’s got friends with him. He’s a—a fuckin’ _pussy_.” Derek thinks he's seen something like this going on once or twice, but since he's not particularly close with Chris, and he'd never met any of his previous targets, he'd just brushed it to the back of his mind in general. It's hard to do that, now, with it directly in front of his face, in the form of someone who's jerked him off before. He confronts the reality of it with some light note of revulsion and a lot of anxiety settling in his gut. It's not a good feeling. “So it’s _mutual, okay_?” Sure. “Is that a _problem_ for you?” Stiles is asking Derek suddenly, and Derek squints.

“ _What_?”

“I don’t _regret_ it,” Stiles snaps. “I’m _not sorry_. And I don’t expect you to choose me over your friends, Hale.” He’s flushed, teeth grit.

“Stiles,” says Derek. “At _what_ point did I indicate I’d take offense to you _reporting_ people for shit?” Stiles isn’t eating his fries, so Derek drags the plate across the table. “I thought you’d at _least_ know enough about me by this point,” Derek adds, “to be aware that I don’t give a shit about anything. I’m not choosing anyone over anyone.”

Stiles looks lost, and Derek likes his eyebrows. Derek considers reaching across the table to clean his glasses or just touch his plush lower lip, but the glasses are so rickety they’d probably disintegrate if he jostled them; and the second thing is too gay for the IHOP.

Derek goes on, "Do you want me to put a stop to it? Is that what you—"

" _Don't_ ," Stiles puts in quickly. "No. I—" He adopts a more caustic air, if that makes sense. "I'm a big kid," he says, jamming his straw around the soda to break up the ice. "I can _handle_ it."

"So far," Derek concedes a little patronizingly, but without much humor. At the very least, Stiles is still alive. Stiles has not in any way heretofore _perished_. And that might be one of the more charitable things Derek can concede about this situation. Derek doesn't point this out, because he's a Hale and knows the value of occasional silence. He carefully slides the plate of fries back across the table. He asks evenly, "What'll happen when you can't anymore?"

Stiles isn't concerned about that question, and Derek can't tell if it's genuine or a bravado. "What do you mean, _can't anymore_? So I hate Chris Argent and his stupid fucking chiclet teeth. What teenage guy doesn't get into fights with dickheads?"

"Stiles," Derek says again.

"No," says Stiles, now stirring his soda so hard it's fizzing up. "This isn't an intervention. Okay? This isn't a whole thing where I spill my guts and _cry_ and you—"

"If you _really_ ," says Derek, leaning in, "don't want me to, then I won't. You don't need to convince _me_ not to rock the boat, Stiles." Stiles snorts, and then smirks stupidly down at his sandwich. Derek had another point to make, some kind of ham-fisted acknowledgement that he doesn't even know what he _is_ to Stiles, or some addendum about the offer to break Chris' nose remaining on the table, but at the last second he thinks better of it. He decides to leave it the way it is. Instead, he reroutes: "My uncle left town yesterday."

Here is where, Derek thinks, a normal person might be thrown at least minimally by a non-sequitur. Stiles just asks, "Where?"

What? _Where_? "I'll just check his blog and get back to you," Derek tells him boredly, to which Stiles does one of those full-body eyerolls. "Seriously? _Where_? Who _gives_ a shit?"

" _You_ brought it up."

"Not to talk to you about his _travel itinerary_. What the fuck?"

"Well, then make your point, because I—"

"You wanna come over?"

 _There_ it is. _That_ throws him. "Come—to your _house_?" verifies Stiles. He's stopped stirring the soda, either because he's reacting to Derek's invitation or because it's overflowed and gotten his hand sticky.

"No, to this side of the table," drawls Derek. Stiles doesn't even react. He's still staring at him in shock, one soda-dripping hand hovering pointlessly a couple inches above the tabletop. Derek doesn't think it's a particularly mindblowing suggestion; they like to fool around, and typically such behavior occurs in a bedroom; and currently, Stiles' home has a person in it, and Derek's does not. "It's empty," Derek explains, a little impatiently. "My sisters are in class. My uncle is gone." Stiles continues to stare. "My cat died six years ago, _what_?"

"Ummm," deliberates Stiles, flushing. "I, um… I wa, I really want to," he confesses. He finally looks back down at the mess he's made, and somewhat mechanically uses a napkin to scrub at his hand. "Um, like, do it with you in your house, or whatever. I'd want…" Derek waits for the _but_. "But," Stiles obliges, "I, uh…" _But it's too personal_ , Derek's mind provides. _But I have plans. But I have homework. But I'm not gay. But I have to shampoo my hair. But_ — "I have pep band?" Stiles admits, wincing preemptively. Derek stares, completely thrown for a loop, and there is a long pause. "Uh, I'm not section leader, but, like—"

"You have _pep band_?" Derek parrots incredulously.

" _Look_ ," interjects Stiles, "I needed an elective in junior high, and I failed art—shut up—so now I play the clarinet—" _The clarinet_ , Derek mouths more or less to himself. "—shut _up_ , and if I miss another practice? Mr. Farmer will cut my _entire dick_ off?" Derek finally looks back at Stiles' face. His mind is still trapped in this space where Stiles plays the _goddamn clarinet_. Stiles looks back, rebuilding some amount of backbone with which to be unashamed. He finishes, "And I won't have anything to jam down your throat."

Derek continues to stare. He has no idea what to do with this information. He had initially thought he might have seen Stiles in the pep band during basketball season, but he'd also eventually decided that Stiles probably wasn't disciplined enough to learn to play an instrument. Now, however, he's looking at Stiles' hands and his mouth with a whole new layer of contemplative appreciation. It explains why he's so dexterous. It also explains why they never hook up on Fridays. Derek wonders how long he can hold his breath. "I'm sure you'd figure something out," Derek finally assures him, and watches Stiles laugh for the first time all day.

::

The news about the clarinet complicates things further, Derek thinks. When they first started doing this, it was clear that there's something a little more than sexual between them; but Derek wouldn't consider Stiles his _boyfriend_ or whatever. You don't pretend not to know your boyfriend at basketball games, he thinks—just as a general rule. Stiles being kind of a dweeb and really annoying to 99% of the school population definitely put a wall up; but the pep band is… Well.

It's not that playing an instrument or being in a club is inherently an inferior activity. On the contrary, several of the people in pep band and in the wind ensemble are also pretty tight with some of Derek's teammates. Derek hooked up with one of the girls who plays the trumpet last year. It's not the pep band as an institution; it's the pep band as _reality_.

You get over there and it's that weird girl with the skin condition on her hands who talks a lot about brushing her teeth. And then there's those two super religious chicks, who happen to be literally the rudest people Derek's ever met—and he's a Hale and in sports, so that's saying something.  Sometimes if you end up paired with one of the pep band kids for something in class, they just, like… stand there and stare at you? Tanner Dornan swears up and down he once sat next to one of them in Bio and she was drawing a weird comic strip about him. Like, him specifically, by name. And then, apparently, there's Stiles: kind of a braggart, very judgmental, and acts before he thinks. Derek doesn't know or care why it always ends up this way, but the bottom line is that pep band has a reputation for being made up largely of people who, for one reason or another, are simply unpleasant to interact with. And Stiles, for all Derek's growing fondness for him, is one of them. That's a problem.

And the new proclamation from Stiles that Derek's not welcome interfering in his social life further sets this in stone.

But on the other hand, "breaking up" with him seems even more impossible. It's a little because they're only nebulously in a situation that would require an official "breakup," and a little because Derek has discovered some aversion to finality in general, but it's mostly because he likes Stiles. He likes him a lot. He likes making out with him in the backseat of his car and he likes talking to him. He likes the things Stiles shows him, the complete bullshit he has to say about them, and the fact that he wants to know what _Derek_ has to say about them.

The entire situation gives him a lot to think about, so much so that the following Monday he blows off algebra to go loiter around the library and brood about it.

He goes into the back, where the study rooms are, right next to the opening to the back hallway. Technically you have to sign up to use them, but the doorknobs have been broken as long as Derek's been doing to school here, and they only have the one librarian. He drops into a chair there, a book open in his lap for appearance's sake, and has been messing around on his phone for about half an hour when he sees movement. Down the hallway a little, Stiles comes down the stairs. Derek wonders if this is his off period or something.

Then, Derek notices something else: Chris Argent and two of the guys from basketball are spread out in the window alcove by the stairs, doing whatever it is they do when they're not getting high or chasing after Lydia Martin. One of the poms, Simone, is there, too, doing a lot of giggling. Stiles is looking at his watch, and doesn't see them quickly enough to head back up the stairs. Derek watches as he notices them, and tries to hurry past unnoticed.

"Stilinski!" Chris calls suddenly, getting up, and Stiles' shoulders slump. "What the _fuck_ , man?"

Stiles keeps walking, but stumbles back when Garrett catches up with him and hooks a hand in his elbow. One of Stiles' notebooks hits the floor, and papers fall out of it. Ryan scoops one up as Garrett hauls Stiles back to the group. Derek starts to stand, and then remembers Stiles' insistence that he stay out of it. "Is this the test?" Ryan asks Chris.

Chris looks. "Nah."

"Only a B!" says Ryan, mock-disappointed. " _According to the sources_ ," he reads, and then, "wow, this is _beautiful_ penmanship, Stilinski. Wonder why you only got a B!"

"Didn't blow Mr. Rios well enough, I guess," Garrett croons, as Chris wraps an arm around Stiles' shoulders.

"Ugh, leave him alone, Chris," says Simone firmly. "Let's just go."

" _Yeah_ , Chris, leave me alone," Stiles agrees caustically. Simone gives him a look of deep dislike.

"No, we need to talk," Chris says, and Simone sighs, annoyed.

"You know how I look forward to our conversations," says Stiles, shrugging the arm off. "But I am leaving." Chris grabs his upper arms.

"You wanna go viral?" asks Garrett, pointing his phone at Stiles. "Say hey to Snapchat!" Stiles narrows his eyes grimly, and then shoves Ryan's hand away from his glasses.

"Let me go," Stiles says.

"Now, let's everybody just relax," Chris says reasonably. "Can we rap for a sec, Stilinski?"

"Chris!" says Simone. "Seriously, leave him alone, he's just trying to leave. Let's just go."

"I'm _just talking_ to him," Chris tells her. Then, back to Stiles, " _Friends_ talk about the issues that are plaguing them. Right, Stilinski?"

Stiles barely has a second to look suspicious before Chris is slamming him back against the lockers with a hand to the chest. A few other papers hit the floor, including one that's folded up, which Garrett plucks off the floor and unfurls. "Give—ow—give that _back_ —" Stiles grits out, lunging for Garrett, but Chris just pushes him back again. This time Stiles hits his head.

"Ugh, whatever, I'm not involved in this," Simone snaps, shoving her way past Ryan.

"Dude," says Ryan, but she ignores him and storms out the side door to the student lot.

"Who's _this_ from?" Garrett's asking, meanwhile, looking at the unfolded paper. "Little love notes from your boyfriend McCall?"

"Focus, guys," says Chris. "Stilinski! What was up with that shit last week?"

"What?" snaps Stiles. "I don't—give that _back_ —"

"Don't play _dumb_ , Stilinski."

"Maybe he's not playing," suggests Ryan. "His grades _are_ slipping."

"You're not playing? Huh?" Chris knocks the heel of his palm into Stiles' forehead, banging his skull against the lockers again. "You really are stupid? Is that why you _broke_ into my _locker_?"

"Your _what_?"

"I think you'd have to have _something_ wrong in the head to think you can _break_ into my _locker_."

" _What_? I didn't touch your fucking locker, Argent," Stiles says, jaw clenched. "Let _go_."

"Really," says Chris. " _Fascinating_." And Derek thinks, clear as a bell, _shit_. " _We_ borrowed your keys," Chris says, gesturing to the three of them, circled around Stiles. "Put 'em away for safekeeping. Right? So you wouldn't run off before we could talk about Mendinghall's class?" The guys nod amicably. "But we get back and my locker's open."

"There was shit missing, too," Ryan adds conversationally, "what was up with _that_?"

"That's _right_!" says Chris. "Thanks for reminding me. _Some_ body _stole_ my _shit_. Isn't that interesting? It _just_ so happens—" He jerks Stiles' backpack off his shoulder.

"Stop—" says Stiles, but without looking away from his face, Chris shoves the backpack into Ryan's arms. Ryan immediately starts rifling through it. Derek looks across the hall. There are a couple sophomores going toward the cafeteria, and they look uncomfortably at what's happening—but they don't say anything. The librarian is nowhere to be seen, probably back in the copy room. Otherwise, no one is around—or if they are, Derek thinks guiltily, they're hiding.

"—that the _very day_ we borrowed your keys," Chris is going on, "my locker gets broken into. What was missing, Garrett?"

"Charger," says Garrett. "Deodorant… Oh and there was something else… Hmmm…"

"You're right, Garrett, there _was_ something else." Chris tilts his head, stares piercingly into Stiles' eyes. "Oh, yeah… Some homo geek's _keys_."

Shit shit _shit_. Derek represses every impulse he has to go and do something—Stiles would be _furious_. But he'd be _alive_. Surely it doesn't count as intervening on Stiles' behalf if he's just righting a misconception? Derek's not worried about Chris knowing he took shit out of his locker. He can take Chris. He can probably take all three of them.

"I—" begins Stiles, but he chokes this back; because what's he gonna do, rat on Derek? _Derek Hale is my secret friend and stole them back for me? Also I have a secret girlfriend who lives in Canada?_ Derek knows no one would believe him.

"Don't bother lying, Stilinski," Chris says. "Some freshmen told us they saw somebody breaking into my locker, so I'd like an _explanation_?" Stiles doesn't respond. He just jerks his head to the side when Ryan swipes at his glasses. Chris recaptures his attention: "You have nothing to say?" Stiles struggles once, but he's blanched and looking nervously around at them. "Nothing at all? He's just gonna stare at me, I guess," Chris directs at Garrett. "Not very _proactive_ , is he?"

"Nah man, he's just in love with you," Garrett suggests boredly, not looking up from his phone.

"Is _that_ it?" asks Chris. "Aw, Stilinski, I'm _touched_." Ryan finally snatches Stiles' glasses off his face. Derek's fidgeting now, bouncing his knee and gripping his phone hard enough that he can feel the buttons on the sides pressing into his palm.

"Shit, _give them back_ ," Stiles snaps, which all three of them find amusing. "You fucking pussy-ass _cowards_ —"

Ryan and Garrett chorus, "Ooooh."

"Pretty shitty friend, Stilinski," Chris tells Stiles. Ryan and Garrett are snickering, dicking around with Stiles' shit, and taking pictures of the situation; but Chris is calm, stony, staring Stiles down. Ryan snaps the glasses in two, and Stiles winces. Chris grabs his jaw and turns it, so he has no choice but to look at Chris—or, since he doesn't have his glasses, in Chris' general direction. "Not even gonna apologize?" The glasses snap again, and then Ryan tosses them away, sending the pieces skittering across the tile. "I think I need to make something crystal clear for you," Chris tells Stiles. "Me and the guys don't appreciate having our _personal lockers_ —"

"What, you don't like having your shit _stolen_?" Stiles interrupts savagely. "Wow, I only wish I knew what _that_ felt like."

"That was tit for tat, my dude!" Chris says. "That shit you pulled in Mendinghall's class needed to be _addressed_."

"Yeah, that was pretty messed up," says Ryan. Garrett, meanwhile, is sort of detachedly turning Stiles' backpack upside down onto the floor, dumping all of his papers, books, and pens across the hallway.

"I dunno what evidence you're basing these accusations on," says Stiles, thoroughly entertaining Garrett and Ryan, "seeing as I don't actually _give_ a shit if you cretins want to cheat in class. I literally don't care."

"Uh huh," says Garrett.  

"You find 'em?" Ryan asks Garrett.

"Nah," Garrett says. "Probably keeps them in his pockets now…"

"Do you think I'm _stupid_?" Chris is asking. "Like Mendinghall found out Dana was helping Ryan on the test because she has psychic powers or something?" Stiles struggles again, and once again, Chris pins him against the locker. "Now the truth is, I can handle all of _that_. But _then_ you had to go and try to mess around with my _sister_."  

"Your _what_?"

"I _saw_ you talking to her today," Chris tells him. Whatever teasing tone he had before has completely vanished. "You trying to accuse _her_ of cheating, too?"

"I don't—"

"I heard he almost got Derek Hale kicked off baseball because he cheated in AP US," Ryan says. He's tearing a page out of a textbook.

"That's a _school_ book, you goddamn _miscreant_ —" says Stiles, grabbing at it, but Chris takes hold of his wrist. "I told you I didn't—he wasn't cheating—why would I, what would I have to _gain_ from—fuck— _stop_ —" He jerks his arm back, but all he does is twist his wrist. It looks painful. "I-I, Allison's my _lab partner_ —"

Chris goes on, "And you're trying to get with her, right?"

"Are you having some kind of psychotic break? I don't want your fucking sister! Let me _go_ —"

"Oh yeah? You think you're too _good_ for her?"

" _What_? Can you like, take a break to figure out what you're assaulting me for—"

Chris pins Stiles' arm hard against the locker with a dull bang, and Stiles makes some choked noise, fingers bent and taut. "I'm going to tell you nicely," Chris says. "You are going to do your little lab project with someone else. I don't care how you do it. I don't care if you have to drop the class. I don't care if you have to let the teacher screw you. I don't care if you have to _transfer schools_. But I _won't_ have you fucking around with my little sister." Stiles shakes his head mutely, mouth open, looking back and forth between his pinned wrist and Chris' face. Fuck it, Derek thinks, clenching his jaw. Fuck Stiles' pride and his demands. Derek physically can't sit there and watch this happen. He slams the book he's holding shut and tosses it onto the floor; heart pounding so hard he can feel it throbbing in his ears, he kicks his chair back and makes his way over to them. "You fucked around with us, and now you're fucking around with my _family_ …"

"Like he even has a _chance_ with—Oh," says Ryan dumbly, looking up as Derek comes and stands next to them. Stiles stares, panicked, in Derek's direction. Now that Derek's closer, he can see that Chris' knuckles are white where he's gripping Stiles' wrist, and Stiles is very much in pain.

"Didn't Danny already talk to you dicks about doing shit like this?" asks Derek, hands in his pockets to hide the fact that they're shaking. He actually sounds largely unaffected—irritated, if anything. If Derek's good at one thing… When Stiles recognizes Derek's voice, Derek can see his eyes flutter. He pulls at his arm once more, but Chris hasn't let go.

"Danny can suck my dick," Chris tells Derek. He must tighten his grip even further, because Stiles chokes out a small noise. 

"Think he'd like to," Ryan says, and Garrett snorts; but they're flushed, now, shifting their weight from foot to foot and eyeing Derek apprehensively.

"I'll let him know the option's available," Derek drawls. Ryan and Garrett look awkwardly at each other, at Stiles, at Derek. Chris just glares at Derek. Finally Derek snaps, "Do I need to spell this out for you?"

Ryan drops the book on the floor. Garrett steps back. Chris is the last to react. He grits his teeth, staring unwaveringly at Derek. Then, finally, he looks back at Stiles, and releases his wrist. Stiles has been holding his breath, and finally he takes a shuddering breath in and holds his arm against his chest. Chris slaps Stiles gently on the cheek. "We can continue this conversation another time," he says.

"I'd actually recommend that you _didn't_ do that," Derek says.

"All right, chill, Derek," Chris says calmly, pushing off the lockers. "We get it, Stilinski's sucking _your_ dick, too."

Unseen by Chris and the guys, Stiles flinches. "You got me," says Derek, detached. "Now fuck off or I'll tell Coach about the weed in your locker."

Recognition flashes in Chris' eyes, and he smirks; but he doesn't answer. He just kicks a piece of Stiles' glasses away as he scoops up his own backpack and follows the other guys out the side door.

The hallway is silent for a second, and then Stiles makes a weak, broken sort of noise, wilting against the lockers. "Hey," says Derek, going to him, hands hovering over him, not sure whether Stiles would let him touch him. Unexpectedly, Stiles pushes into Derek's chest, forehead pressing against his neck. Derek holds him. Emotions are fraught, he thinks, gathering him up. It's just a thing people do when they're upset. It doesn't mean anything. "You're all right," Derek says softly.

"No," says Stiles, taking in miserable gulps of air. "No, I'm not. H-he, I c-can't afford new glasses, m-my dad's insurance won't—until July, and—or to p-pay for the book, I—"

"I'll get it," says Derek. Stiles starts to argue, but Derek interrupts, "Shut up. I'm the one who took the shit out of his locker, Stiles. This happened because of _me_."

"No?" says Stiles again, now clinging to Derek's shirt with one hand. The arm Chris had pinned is still cradled against his body. "This _happened_ because _Chris_ is the _scourge of man_." Before Derek can answer, Stiles suddenly reroutes, "I'm sorry. It's not normally like that. I can normally—I—"

"You lied to me," Derek says, but he's not angry about it. At least, he's not angry at _Stiles_. "I'm not gonna ask why you kept this from me," he goes on, "but I _am_ gonna stop it from happening again."

"No. Don't… you don't ha—you _can't_ …"

"Whatever _we_ have aside," says Derek, " _I_ didn't like seeing it." Stiles doesn't answer. Derek thinks it probably didn't occur to him that Derek might have feelings about the situation that weren't centered around some kind of personal obligation to Stiles. Derek adds, realizing it as he's saying it, "And I don't want it to happen again. To anyone."

Stiles finally pulls back—not to back up from Derek, just to stand up straight. His face has gone up in red blotches, and he scrubs tears off his cheek with one palm. He looks up at Derek's face. Hoarsely, frenetically, he confesses, "I ca—I can't see. Without them." His glasses are in three pieces, strewn about their feet; and one lens is crushed amidst his mess of papers. "When," Stiles goes on in a rough whisper, "when I heard your voice, I—"

Those sophomores are long gone, having vanished around when the glasses came off, so Derek takes Stiles' face in his hands and kisses him. Without a second of hesitation, Stiles surges into it, wrapping shaking arms around him. Derek presses him against the lockers, and Stiles makes some kind of needy moan. He's probably just scared, coasting on some kind of adrenaline rush. Maybe feeling beholden to Derek in some way. Derek tries to tell himself that, to not capitalize on Stiles' panic to satisfy his own intense feelings, but he fails the struggle between sensibility and passion, and pushes a hand up his shirt. Stiles exhales, another deprived whine, and distractedly hooks one leg around Derek's calf, pulling him in tighter. 

Up at the top of the stairs, Derek suddenly hears a couple girls talking. He has no idea how long they've been here, doing this, but it seems like it's been a while. Heroically he disentangles himself from Stiles, who is still flushed, only now he also looks kissed-stupid.

The girls don't come down the stairs, but Derek accepts this as a reminder of where they are, and kneels to start scooping up papers. Stiles drops full on his hands and knees and starts grabbing at the pieces of the lens; and he whimpers unhappily when he discovers how ruined it is. Derek finds the remaining pieces of glasses. Only one new break; the other two are places that were already taped together. One of the things that were poured out of the backpack is a dirty tape dispenser, which Derek makes use of to get the frames back together. One lens is still in there, at least. He passes the finished product and the tape over to Stiles. "Oh… thank you," Stiles says.

Suddenly, somebody else is helping Derek pick up papers. It's Boyd. They stare at each other for a long beat, neither betraying a single facial expression. Stiles lifts the glasses to his face and gasps dramatically: " _Jesus_ —holy _shit_! What the—"

Boyd stares at him.

"Wh—where'd _you_ come from?" asks Stiles.

"Wow, you really _do_ have shitty vision," Boyd comments. Stiles stares blankly. Derek thinks Boyd's probably never spoken directly to him before. One leg of Stiles' glasses droops on one side, and Stiles cusses under his breath and removes them to adjust Derek's amateur glasses surgery. "I dunno what you did to Chris Argent," Boyd directs at Derek, continuing to scoop up papers. Unlike Derek, he's actually turning them rightside-up and stacking them neatly. Derek's never done that for Stiles' papers because he's never found them that way. "But whatever it was, he's out in the parking lot talking 'bout he's gonna bust out all the windows in your car…"

"He can if he wants to," says Derek flatly. "It's my uncle's car, I don't give a shit what he does to it."

Boyd looks over at Stiles, who has managed to get his glasses back on, and is using his one eye to gather up his notebooks. "You gonna tell Danny?" he asks Derek, gesturing to Stiles with his head.

"You think it'd do any good?" Derek accepts Boyd's neat stack and consolidates it with his own messy, wrinkled one.

Boyd shrugs one shoulder. Danny's team captain, both in baseball and in lacrosse. He's also well-liked and unwavering in his decisions. There would be results. However, there would also be social uproar. There would be shifting of team positions, intensifying of politics. Taylor Rayburn and Victoria Daniels, Garrett and Chris' respective girlfriends, would be _furious_. And it's not like Chris and his friends can be supervised at all times: Derek has no guarantee that incidents of them starting shit wouldn't _increase_. Derek hates the drama. The drama's the whole reason he stopped hanging out with most of them last year. "Something to think about," Boyd says.

They both stand, and Derek hands the papers to Stiles, so he can cram them into his backpack and mournfully examine the ruined pieces of his wayward lens. Boyd looks sidelong at Derek, in that way he has where he can lever a detached sort of expectance on him. Derek doesn't tell him a lot, inasmuch as he doesn't tell _people_ a lot; but he thinks Boyd knows as much about him as Stiles does.

Boyd pushes up his sleeves. "Anything else you wanna tell me?"

Derek hesitates. Stiles finishes his gathering mission in his periphery and stands clumsily. Right when he's starting to think he might tell Boyd, Stiles pipes up, voice cracking, "Um, tha—uh, thanks. Boyd and… Derek. I'll catch you guys later…" He glances at the door out to the student lot, chews his lip, and then heads in the opposite direction, up the hall past the library. Derek watches him go. His ears are bright red.

"Maybe later," Derek says to Boyd, who doesn't look surprised or confused at all. He never does.

::

"It doesn't mean anything," Stiles tells Derek firmly, later that week. Stiles has been home "sick with mono" for several days, which means Derek can come over on the days when his off is last period. "What happened on Monday, I mean."

Derek looks dubiously up. They're in Stiles' bed, looking at their phones and mostly ignoring each other. Derek's already made him come once, so hopefully this isn't a prelude to a clumsy breakup.

"I get that you've decided to thwart Argent and the Asshole Brigade from here on out," says Stiles, and then he pauses and shows Derek a tweet with a joke about his astrological sign. It's kind of funny. Then he continues, "But don't make it about only me."

"You're the only one whose dick I've sucked," Derek points out flatly, returning to his own phone.

Stiles isn't fazed. "That's good to know. Only, oral sex isn't, like, a dark bargain binding our souls for eternity." Derek looks up once again, to convey to Stiles with his face how amazed and annoyed he is by Stiles' entire personality. "Just because we have—uh, _are_ , uh…" See, he doesn't know what to call it either. And neither one of them wants to embody the 'what are we' meme. He sits up. "It doesn't make you my, like, _sworn protector_ or whatever."

"What _does_ it make me, then?" Derek asks, looking up at Stiles' eyes. He's not wearing glasses, because he's had to switch to glasses from two years ago, with an outdated prescription. They're clunky black plastic, angular; they look less stupid than his cheap frames that were destroyed. But they give him headaches and make it difficult for him to read; and they also seem to warp the appearance of his eyes. The lenses are scratched from having been tossed in a drawer and left there for so long. So he only wears them if he has to see more then two feet away.

Stiles blushes very slowly, looking back. Derek has a suspicion he's looking at Stiles in 'that way,' the 'way' Stiles accuses him of looking whenever he gets horny. Derek still hasn't figured out what exactly the 'way' is. "Uh… I dunno," Stiles says eventually. "Pretty hot, I guess."

Derek smirks. "Good answer."  

"Yuh-huh," says Stiles, unimpressed. He touches Derek's chest, just with a couple fingertips, thoughtful. Sort of tracing the pattern of his chest hair, maybe. His wrist has gone up in angry purple streaks. Then he says, "Did I thank you?" Derek has no idea what he's talking about. "For s—for helping me." His voice is quiet and he's avoiding eye contact. He also seems pensive, a little melancholy.

"You don't have to," says Derek.

Stiles shakes his head, brow furrowed. "I honestly—it really isn't that bad, usually. Usually they steal some shit... or they corner me until I hit him, and then they all hit me back." Stiles has completely normalized this. Derek is mystified and disturbed. Stiles goes on, "I honestly thought he was gonna put me in the hospital."

"You being Allison's partner set him off," Derek says.

"He is, like," Stiles raises his eyebrows, " _unreasonably_ protective of her and Kate." Finally he looks up at Derek. "Not protective. _Possessive_."

"Hm. Like Kate needs it." Her name tastes gross coming out of his mouth. He hates her guts. "What's your project, anyway? With Allison?" 

"Oh... Conservation of mass. We have to fuck around with sodium bicarbonate. It's very... goggles and beakers."

Derek sort of wants to see Stiles in goggles measuring chemicals. "Are you gonna switch partners?"

"Nope," says Stiles. "She's cool. She's nice to me. We had to write the name of our favorite show at the top of the paper? And we both came up with like four, and then she put the Bachelor because it was the one we had in common."

God, of course Stiles watches the goddamn Bachelor. "Uh huh."

"And Scott has a huge crush on her, so I have to put in a good word for him, no matter how futile the task." Derek huffs a laugh, and closes his eyes. He opens them again when Stiles asks, "Is Chris gonna jump you, now, too?"

Derek shrugs one shoulder. "If he does, so be it."

Stiles doesn't say anything more. There's a beat of silence, and then Stiles leans down and kisses Derek, just once, soft. Then he sits back up and fidgets mildly with the hem of his comforter. Derek doesn't think he's ever kissed him like that. Even their first kiss, even though it was technically kind of _courtly_ in nature, was pretty sexually charged. There's something unfamiliar in Derek's chest, some kind of slow pang that makes him want to pull Stiles down and kiss him again. Before he can, however, Stiles' sharpness comes back: "Okay. Hold still, I'm gonna fulfill my end of the dark bargain."

 _What_? Oh, jesus. "You are so goddamn _weird_ ," Derek announces, strained, as Stiles moves down and gives Derek's cock a long, wet lick, up the underside and over the tip.

"I _know_ ," Stiles says, almost breathy, looking up at Derek with mostly blind, laughing eyes. "If only you weren't so _into_ it."

And then he sucks Derek's dick. 

Derek had wondered about Stiles sucking him off with braces, and he's surprisingly good at it. Derek thinks he's better at it than Derek is. The way he moves his head is... well. He pulls off and goes back down in intervals, and it looks like it's because he's strategizing, like he can't seem to figure out how to go about it, but he wants it too bad to sit back and think about it. He's doing that again, looking shrewdly at Derek's dick, licking his lips and haphazardly wiping spit and come off his chin. He brushes his fingertips along Derek's hip—and suddenly, Derek comes, out of nowhere, like a punch to the gut. " _Ah_! What—!" He sits up and scrubs at his face with his palms, the back of his wrist. " _Ah_! _Fuck_! You came in my _eye_!" 

"Sorry," Derek slurs.

"You are _not_! I'm blind!"

"To be fair, you were already basically blind."

"You're such an _asshole_! I can't believe this! _God_!"

Derek laughs, and Stiles looks at him, one eye covered with his hand, dazed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is Stiles' attitude and also Chris's cologne.
> 
>  **Spoilers:** Derek discovers that Stiles is being regularly bullied by some teammates. There are a couple homophobic comments. It gets a little too serious, so Derek steps in. Their relationship is still a secret. Stiles is safe currently.


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